


Which side are you on

by red_flag



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: (?), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Capitalism is shit and i will tear it down in this fic just because i can, Civil War, Commander Lexa (The 100), Doctor Clarke Griffin, Doctor/Patient, F/F, I Don't Even Know, Implied/Referenced Torture, Police Brutality, Political Alliances, Politics, Propaganda, Revolutionary War, Riots, Trigger Warnings, Violence, Whoever can guess what system i believe in best gets a cookie, be kind in the comments I know we don't all agree with politics, be prepared, becomes dark later on, plot? nah who needs it, the story starts light and gentle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:08:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 31
Words: 95,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24606727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_flag/pseuds/red_flag
Summary: There were uncountable people crowding the entrance of the hospital and injured were being pulled on stretchers, fresh blood spilled on the white tiles. Clarke’s hands heavily landed on one of the stretchers, the cold metal biting her palm slightly, and helped the five nurses roll it in one of the emergency rooms.It was a young woman pressed on the soaking sheets, losing too much blood from a bullet wound in her stomach, her hands shaking as she pressed on her own wound with a piece of cloth, trying to stop the bleeding. The nurses had to actually hit the woman’s hands to make them lose the iron grip. Green eyes snapped around with panicked anger, taking in the faces that leaned over them, orbs calculating despite the pain.Clarke paused. There was something about this woman –except the beautiful face and eyes– that got her attention. Something about her and the bullet wound in her stomach was familiar. It was stupid and it didn’t make sense and she needed to snap out of it this exact moment because her patient was losing too much blood and did not need Clarke to think anything other than the piece of metal that was killing her.
Relationships: Anya & Lexa (The 100), Clarke Griffin & Lexa, Clarke Griffin & Raven Reyes, Clarke Griffin/Lexa, Indra & Lexa (The 100), Octavia Blake & Clarke Griffin, Octavia Blake & Indra
Comments: 266
Kudos: 418





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I am trying something here, inspired by the beautiful demostrations all over the world that are taking place at the moment. i don't know where this story can go, if it will go anywhere at all but i decided to post it because why not.
> 
> So it has some political stuff in there but we won't be focusing on them more than necessary and please, i know we cannot all agree on them so try to be kind if you chose to voice any of your disagreements in the comments.
> 
> English is not my first language folks, so be patient with me and the mistakes in here. I am also not from the United States and probably shouldn't have chosen the setting of this country as i don't have an exact picture of the political parties and how they work there so be patient with that as well, i am looking into it. But point is that this is fiction so i have excused myself for not being on point with some stuff.
> 
> Let me if you would like to see this continue. Excuse the title, it might change, i hadn't thought of one and i was listening to the song so yeah. I hope everyone stays safe with the coronovirus and everything else happening.
> 
> The story contains torture and a lot of violence later. There will be trigger warnings in the beginning of such chapters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning; state violence, implied/referenced torture

Clarke pulled at her long coat, sheltering her body from the September cold weather that had wrapped around the town that once used to be Washington DC. Her gloved hand lightly tightened around the cup of black tea, its heat managing to gently bite at her fingertips despite the leather that stood between the paper and her skin. Her breath was coming out as light thin fog, hovering on the air an inch away from her face, for a split moment before disappearing. Clarke’s steps were steady but fast, her boots stable on the frozen concrete. Her gaze only slightly stranded left and right to scan her surroundings.

A horn sounded close to her, making her steps finally stumble slightly, her free hand darting to her side, pressing the handgun against her ribcage just to feel its presence. The way from her apartment to the hospital was probably one of the safest roads in the whole city but she couldn’t entirely feel safe. There were people walking around to get to their works, a couple of cars waiting in the cracked red lights, tiny groups of rebels been carefully formed here and there, the huge packs they carried being the only thing giving them away. Every morning, she’d remind herself that the center of the town was secured, she was safe among the crowd, the people.

Her eye caught a glimpse of red paint and she turned in instinct, taking in the letters on the wall of what was once a bank. The building stood dark and empty and sealed under the thick clouds that spat out drops of rain and melting snow. It had been a while since the banks and the schools had been shut down or burned, some of them being turned into hidden and secret bases of the squads controlling this part of the town.

 _A better world is possible_ was the catchword, the red letters looking like they were bleeding on the dark bricks of the bank and Clarke sighed, rolling her tired shoulders at the thought of the injured people that would be surely waiting for her as soon as she passed the entrance of the hospital.

It had been a calm couple of weeks, the rough fights downtown having lessened due to the ground the rebels had managed to take after some fierce conflicts between the communist party and the National Army. However, the injured were still rolling in the halls of the hospital in a very steady rate, the beds and units almost entirely filled by the people that had been subjected to odious interrogations or torture. The hospital had been a grey zone during the past three months but it was now cleared, soldiers not even _daring_ to step foot on the streets near it.

It made Clarke relax. She remembered the dark times police was still a thing and she remembered the way the officers would arrogantly scroll through the halls and ask for names and ID’s of the patients and the visitors. She had been one of the doctors that had stood their ground and had roughly brought in the old police department to be questioned and terrorized. Clarke still had a scar to remind her of the treatment.

Just as she’d expected, a small crowd of people was huddled inside, covering every corner of the front area, the waiting room filled completely. Clarke eyed the people sitting on the floor because of the lack of chairs. She passed by two tall men, their faces known; they were known workers, serious people, pulled together and faithful to the fair fight against their oppressors. She was surprised to see them standing in the open, knowing there was surely some kind of warrant hanging over their heads for their arrest or death sentence.

She all but sprinted to the locker room, even though she was fifteen minutes early, knowing that it would be another long day of stitching people together and having them ignoring her medical orders to rush back in the safety of the streets. The official declare of war had been dropped around a year ago and the people were only now starting to grow more confident but at the same time, they were still careful, afraid.

It was a bittersweet to remember the times before the war. The fascists had been openly given power to operate, to scare people away of the demonstrations against their government’s war friendly actions against the countries of, well, the rest of the world. When the conflicts with the police started to leave dead behind, it took one or two weeks for the peaceful demonstrations to turn into rough riots. It was in the early days of September that the government fell under the pressure and the army was released on the streets to contain the raging people.

The riots were fallen into place after the communist party gained all the support it needed to take the control of the movements and set some kind of order that led _somewhere_ ; a world that needed to crush the old one. They’d set up a group of people that effectively organized what needed to be done and here in Washington DC, they were called the Coalition. Its members had been rising each day since it all begun and honestly, Clarke didn’t even know how the hell they managed to do it but everyone was pulled together for one purpose after the Coalition’s creation.

After that, the movements sharply turned against government agencies, the police and the army that worked with the fascists, the secret services, against the whole _system_ the United States stood on and worked with and no one had even thought it could be _torn_ _down_ and be rebuilt into something… better? Clarke didn't know. It sounded good but impossible.

Somewhere along the way, the peaceful demonstrations against the country’s lead in the deathliest imperialistic wars had turned into a full civil war that if the Coalition and the people won, it would turn into something foreign but good, hopeful. Clarke didn’t know if they could make it, she didn’t know if it could work in the end but… well, what they had been living in before the civil war was rotten and, one way or another, it needed to change.

The civil war of the United States of America had stopped a Third World War. Clarke had thought the humanity and even the planet itself wouldn’t have been able to survive from something like this. Not when the use of nuclear weapons was an open discussion.

It helped that it wasn’t just them fighting for something better. After the start of the war in America there was a _worldwide movement_ of uprisings all over the globe that took their example. The damned internet had been down for the last months and news they got from the national TV were few and controlled but they were fed with information from the various papers and flyers they were thrown in the streets, in the entrance of every living and working complex. The beauty of it was that they got pieces of information from every squad, party or movement in the city, but all of them wrote of the same developments happening across the world, commending them according to their own different beliefs.

Clarke looked around the empty locker room as she slowly unfolded a flyer that had been pushed under her apartment door. It was of a local anarchy squad and it wasn’t the first time Clarke found one of their flyers under her door. She scanned the letters quickly, reading of the uprising in Spain, the daily number of the fallen workers in the other states, a brief critique of the last actions the communists had agreed on taking. Her fingers tightened around the thin paper as she read of the rough ambush of one of their squads by a group of fascists, which had taken place just outside downtown in the early morning.

Her father’s watch beeped lightly against her wrist, letting her know that her shift had just started and Clarke moved, tearing the flyer in pieces and dropping them in the bin by the door. She paused, reaching into her pocket to take out the small box of matches she carried with her, snapping one of them against the box’s side, a tiny flame raising. She dropped it into the bin, watching the paper folding under the fire as it fed on it, its yellow color grasping her attention. Clarke pushed the door of the locker room open, tilting the bottle of her water over the flames, putting them out quietly.

It was going to be a long day.

\---

It was a long, exhausting, fucked up day.

More than ten patients had bolted out of the hospital’s main doors as soon as Clarke tended to their injuries; bruises and deep cuts, broken bones, cut fingers, a couple of bullet wounds. Her doctor brain was focused to the simple nature of the wounds but the other half of her head was shook at the sight of torture. It had been a while since the army and the secret services had taken the streets dressed as simple civilians to interrogate people with the use of violent means that left corpses in apartments and alleys. They were called Reapers and the thought of their organization was enough to fill her with rage. She knew the Coalition was searching them out, executing them on the spot.

Clarke worked for a full seven hours shift before she decided that her legs wouldn’t be able to keep her up if she didn’t take a break. The halls were crowded with people as she passed between them, taking in a breath as she climbed up the stairs to the second floor of the hospital, her feet taking her to the section of the offices. She was glad when she found her mom’s office door pushed open and no patient waiting on the uncomfortable chairs outside.

Abby wasn’t in her usual spot in the black leather chair and the computer was turned off, even if her bag was dropped on the desk. Clarke guessed she was just down the hall to the precious vending machine that stood behind a corner and was filled with enough sugar to make the whole staff of the hospital going. She let herself inside, her aching body dropping on the chair near the small window that looked at a brick wall of the building next to it. The blonde young doctor scowled at the wall but felt her body relax as warm sunlight hit her face and chased away the light chill in the air.

Clarke yawned, eyes taking in the familiar interior of her mother’s office. It wasn’t the best experience to work in the same hospital with her even if they rarely had any kind of contact while at work, both of them too busy to catch up. Truth was that she hadn’t expected her mother to have an empty office and some time off at the same time as her. Abby Griffin was one of the top surgeons this hospital had in its staff and Clarke started to work here two years ago and was still trying to find her place. She’d her patients and posts and she had her moments in the operating rooms but still, the cases she was given were the simple ones.

Missing fingers and broken ribs were indeed considered simple cases these months.

The beeping of her pager pulled her out of her thoughts, just as the muffled sound of a commotion reached her ears. Her body was up and moving before her mind caught up to what was exactly happening.

“Clarke!”

“Mom!”

Abby was walking towards her with wide steps, her own pager going off and then they were both running down the lines of stairs, not able to share another word. On their way down, two more doctors joined them and Clarke felt her gut twisting at the thought of something really bad had happened.

There were uncountable people crowding the entrance of the hospital and injured were being pulled on stretchers, fresh blood spilled on the white tiles. Clarke’s hands heavily landed on one of the stretchers, the cold metal biting her palm slightly, and helped the five nurses roll it in one of the emergency rooms.

It was a young woman pressed on the soaking sheets, losing too much blood from a bullet wound in her stomach, her hands shaking as she pressed on her own wound with a piece of cloth, trying to stop the bleeding. The nurses had to actually hit the woman’s hands to make them lose the iron grip. Green eyes snapped around with panicked anger, taking in the faces that leaned over them, orbs calculating despite the pain.

Clarke paused. There was something about this woman –except the beautiful face and eyes– that got her attention. Something about her and the bullet wound in her stomach was familiar. It was stupid and it didn’t make sense and she needed to snap out of it this exact moment because her patient was losing too much blood and did not need Clarke to think anything other than the piece of metal that was killing her.

“Sedate her”, Clarke snapped to someone as the stretcher rolled into the operating room, a mask already in place over her mouth and nose. The green eyes widened at the words and she searched to find the one commanding the nurses, but every gaze was away from her, opting to focus on the tools around.

Clarke was only able to pull on her gloves. A strong gloved hand wrapped around her medical white robe, pushing her against the wall of the room with strength that she didn’t expect. To her surprise, it was a woman that stood in front of her, a couple of inches shorter than her, brown raging eyes burning into hers with a calm hostility. A very impressive automatic rifle hanged from her shoulder and a knife was pushed on Clarke’s abdomen.

Everyone froze, even the green eyed brunette on the damn stretcher. Clarke exhaled slowly, deeply, meeting the woman’s brown eyes and a threat formed in her mouth before it was shallowed for something more civilized. Her voice had authority she didn’t know she possessed. “Let me do my job”.

There was blood covering the front of her dark clothes. “I am staying in this room”.

“No”.

The blade pressed harder against her shirt and Clarke gulped, feeling her very soul trembling. But she stilled herself, taking in a breath, feeling her eyes hardening.

“You are wasting my time and she doesn’t have the luxury of that”.

“ _Let her, Indra_ ”.

Something shifted in the brown eyes before any anger in them completely melted away at the sound of the pained breathy voice. Blue eyes flickered up to the woman that had pulled herself up on the stretcher, red blood falling from the corner of her mouth. At the sight of it, Clarke pushed the other woman away, not giving a damn of the knife in her stomach. Her patient had either bitten her tongue or there was an internal bleeding that needed to be treated _now_.

“I told someone to sedate her!” she heard her voice growl and, a moment later, the gorgeous green eyes flattered shut, the lean body lost all its strength.

She didn’t know half of the nurses in the room with her but she was glad for their training and obvious experience. The tools were handed to her before she asked, a hand was there to press down on the wound, straighten the lamb, help her move around the operating table.

It took a while but the bullet finally clattered on the metallic small bowl. A wave of relief crushed through Clarke at the lack of internal bleeding, the woman had indeed bit on her tongue. However, before she managed to tend to the wound, a light hand pushed her away but her protests were halted as her pager was pressed in her blood covered glove, sealed in a small plastic bag. It steadily beeped and blinked with the number of another room and the same hand that had pulled her away pushed her to the door.

Clarke met the nurse’s kind brown eyes and saw the same order in them. She was needed elsewhere and the team was able to finish the job here. Clarke nodded and turned, pausing at the sight of Indra still standing by the door with her knife kept in her hold. The blonde met her eyes as she pulled the gloves off of her hands and the mask from her face, dropping them to a bin and approached the older woman.

“Are you hurt?”

The question seemed to raise a spark of surprise in her eyes but her facial expression didn’t change. If possible, it hardened a bit more. The blonde doctor glanced down at her blood soaked clothes and raised an eyebrow, waiting for an answer that, if it didn’t come quick, Clarke swore to God she’d call security to take the woman out of the building.

Thankfully, it didn’t come to that. “It is not my blood”.

“Good”. Clarke was moving before another minute passed, opening the door to find five armed men standing outside. She froze at the sight of the guns and rifles that rose and aimed at her and she wondered who the fuck was the green eyed woman lying unconscious in her operation room.

She gritted her teeth and turned her head to the nurses that worked carefully. “Page me when you are done”, she shouted at them, waiting for a nod to be shown and then she slammed the door shut behind her, leaving Indra and the armed men to guard her obviously very important patient.


	2. Chapter 2

The young green eyed woman was written down as _Lexa_ , which was obviously some kind of nickname. It wasn’t rare to have someone giving a fake name to them, hell, it was the most common thing nowadays. Lexa had finally woken up half an hour ago and Clarke wondered if she had managed to open her eyes against the agony currently crushing through her whole being.

The thing about trying to build a new society and having a civil war raging was that medicine would _eventually_ start to run out. Building something new on something else meant a piece of _that_ something would crumble completely. She knew the Coalition was trying very hard to provide everything needed to the hospitals but most of the factories stocking them with the supplies were shut down or working with problems. Being in a city trying to get back on its feet against the military forces and a hidden protected army of Reapers, well, Lexa would have to bite down on something for a bit longer because the physical pain wasn’t going anywhere just yet.

It didn’t help that Indra and a man called Gustus pulled up a very loud fight with her to have Lexa moved to some base, where she’d be safe. Clarke had found herself with a gun in her head when she blocked the door with her body to stop them from even _trying_ to do anything stupid, like moving her patient that had _just_ gotten out of the fucking surgery. It was not her first time standing in front of a weapon held in a very capable hold and she was more than blissful she had just had her second crappy coffee of the day.

And honestly, judging by the small crowd of armed men guarding the room and the whole damned hospital for anything suspicious, Lexa was safer here, where she wouldn’t have to shift an inch and have something inside her snapping and bleeding out.

Clarke found her patient laying with her teeth gritted, her gaze frozen on the ceiling as she listened to whatever Indra was telling her. Or she didn’t listen. Clarke did not know if she’d have been able to listen to anything in this state of pain. The blonde had to take a moment at the open doorway to stare at the beauty this young woman possessed. She hadn’t had the time to look at her during surgery, considering it’d be completely unprofessional and Lexa had been bleeding out heavily and balancing on a very thin line between life and death. But now said death wasn’t a possibility and Clarke took a long moment to appreciate the way Lexa’s jawline curved upwards sharply, leaving her neck looking deliciously long and smooth.

Somewhere deep in her head, Clarke could hear Raven laughing at her.

“Doctor Griffin”.

Considering the good damn genetics the universe and her parents had provided her, it wasn’t really necessary for this woman to be also given a voice like _that_.

“Clarke is fine”.

Despite the obvious pain, Lexa managed to smirk. “Doctor Clarke”.

She pressed the back of her palm on the young woman’s forehead, relieved to find her skin casually cool to the touch. It was the end of a very busy day and she really had to ask someone about their antibiotics stoke before she headed home. “How’re you feeling?”

Lexa seemed desperate to hold a calm stoic look over her face but her eyes seemed pained and the muscles of her whole body were locked tight. “It hurts”.

Clarke felt a pang of sympathy as she checked the wound, clean white bandages in her hold. The stiches weren’t pulled even slightly and Clarke was glad Lexa had not moved more than needed. “We can’t do much about that I’m afraid”.

Lexa nodded, raising a shaky hand to wipe at the sweat on the bridge of her nicely shaped nose. “When do you think I can leave, Doctor?”

It was terribly… polite. She obviously wanted to go as soon as possible but the green eyes looked at Clarke as if they needed her own opinion. She wondered if whatever she said would matter. There had been countless patients before Lexa that had run out of their rooms without a second word, ignoring any protests from her or the rest of the staff. Just like them, Indra or Gustus didn’t seem to really care much about her medical opinion but there was something about Lexa and the way her clear eyes cut through Indra that Clarke was sure they wouldn’t do anything against the brunette’s wishes.

“I would suggest you stay for a week but…” the panic in the green eyes froze as soon as it started to shine in them “…knowing you probably have… _important_ things to do, I would say just a couple of days to make sure an infection isn’t in the script here”.

Lexa seemed to relax against the pillows, the green eyes ripping themselves from her blue ones to stare at the ceiling like it held every answer she might need. Clarke felt herself bite her lower lip, turning to look at Indra, the older woman’s gaze untrusted and judging. Indra huffed as the moments stretched on for a bit more, turning to her eyes to stare at painting of a lighthouse on the wall next to Lexa’s bed. Clarke had a faint feeling that the lack of windows wasn’t a coincidence.

“Okay”.

The answer surprised both Clarke and Indra, both of their heads snapping up but for different reasons. While Clarke’s whole body filled with relief that her patient wasn’t stupid, Indra’s eyes clouded with frustration.

“ _Lexa_!”

Lexa rolled her eyes softly, easing back onto the pillows. “I said okay, Indra”.

Indra started to pass, tightly gripping at the strap of her rifle. “This is not wise”.

Clarke carefully filled Lexa’s empty cup with cool water. “It is the wisest thing”.

Indra glared. She shrugged. Lexa bit back a groan.

“Doctor Griffin…”

“It’s Clarke”.

“Clarke”, Lexa softly corrected herself, meeting her gaze. The blonde sighed, cursing the universe for the sin this woman was. Lexa didn’t really have the right to say her name in that way, breathless and soft, making her want to hear her say it under other circumstances. _Jesus, this woman was in obvious fucking pain and she really was unprofessional_. “Could I have a moment with Indra, please?”

“Sure”, she smiled as if she wasn’t picturing this woman on top of her. “Call a nurse if you feel any more pain than that or if a fever kicks in. I will try to find you some pain killers but I don’t make any promises”.

“Your supplies are limited?”

Clarke snorted before she turned to the door. “Whose aren’t?”

She was sure the green eyes followed her all the way out.

\---

“You are _really_ unprofessional”.

“I know”.

“I dig it”.

“I know”.

“Are you going to keep in touch?”

“Focus, Raven, we are in the middle of a war, there is no way to keep in touch”.

“She sounds like a snack, are you seriously not going to try it?”

“Did you miss the part where I said she has a small army protecting her?”

“Anarchists?”

“No, I don’t think so. They seemed organized”.

“Hey! I’m organized!”

“You are a mess, Reyes”.

“The Coalition doesn’t think so”.

“Yeah, they haven’t seen your workplace”.

“I am sure they had sent someone to check it out”.

“Will you guys _shut up_? I am trying to sleep”.

“Sorry, O”.

“Sorry, little Blake”.

Clarke huffed, leaning back against her bed, taking a sip of her tea. She missed the good coffee, the rich sent of espresso and the loyal kick of energy a few sips could give her. The only kind of coffee that seemed to exist in the United States at the moment was the watery liquid in the hospital’s break room.

“You really should not talk about her and her army though”.

“I’m talking about her and her army with you, guys”.

“Yeah, but we could be bugged”.

“Why would they bug the apartment of an unprofessional doctor?”

“I thought you were asleep, O”.

“I was but Raven just leaked her _confidential_ membership. I can’t sleep after that”.

“I didn’t walk out in the street to shout it, Octavia”.

“Still, you need to shut up about it. Those assholes are everywhere”.

“Guys, we are safe here”.

“Are we?”

“Why would they watch me?”

“You come in contact with many people”.

“And you currently have a patient that is heavily guarded”.

“Then they would be waiting for me in here when I got home from work”.

“Nah, they would want to find out who your patient is”.

“Then they would interrogate me and, because I’d keep saying _I don’t know who she is_ , they would shoot me on the head and leave me here”.

“True”.

“Jesus, I pictured it happening. I don’t want you to die, Griffin”.

“Thank, O. I don’t want you to die either”.

“What about me?”

“Eh, we’d get some quiet if you kicked it”.

“And less near heart attack experiences…”

“Fuck you both”.

Octavia chucked, patting Raven’s head gently. Clarke let her knee fall on Raven’s.

“We love you”.

“You better”.

“You were supposed to say you love us too”.

“Not after those comments, no”.

Clarke leaned closer, letting her head drop on Raven as well. “I am sure the Coalition is proud to have you as their bomb maker”.

“Yeah, I, huh, I actually had a fight with Wick”.

“Why?”

“He doesn’t get it; the protests, not the bomb making. Of course, he doesn’t know of the bomb making”.

“Maybe he thinks it’s dangerous”.

“No. I don’t know”. Raven huffed. “He acts like he doesn’t want to be a part of it”.

“What do you mean?”

“You are scaring me when you get that voice, O”.

“You know I’m not going to report him if he isn’t like… actively on the opposite side”.

“Yeah, I don’t think he is”.

“Should you keep some distance?”

“He doesn’t know much of what I am actually doing”.

“Still”.

“I don’t know. Maybe I should. He thinks there’s no point anymore. That we were better before the war broke out and maybe the Coalition should find a way to make peace”.

Clarke stiffened. “Peace with whom? The billionaires and those racist power-hungry politicians who just killed so many people? Or the military? What is he talking about? He came to the funerals. He saw it all”.

“I don’t think peace is an option anymore”.

“I know”.

“If they even get a small opening to get their way, they will step on it and gain power again and just… hunt down everyone that has taken a part in this movement”.

“I know”.

“I didn’t know Wick was a pacifist”.

“God, he is not. Even the pacifists are a part of this. What am I doing?”

“Hey, it’s going to be fine. You want to crash here after we get out crappy dinner?”

“Yeah, yeah, I want to”.

“Good. We got you, Raven. Don’t worry”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm being really gentle with the war setting I know but I think it will get a bit darker later on. Also I'm going to go with every soulmate, love at first sight kind of thing just because I am currently writting a very slow slowburn and this is like my break from that story, so in this fic Clexa will be like together as soon as they can.
> 
> I'm having fun writting this story but I'm also very nervous about posting it. Excuse any mistakes, English is not my first language. Throw headcannons and your throughts about this at me, I swear to god this is a mess and there is no plot here.


	3. Chapter 3

Clarke felt every muscle on her body screaming to her to push Lexa back on the bed and hold her down until she stopped moving. Clarke sighed long and heavy and she wished that those exact thoughts weren’t accompanied by the tight worry crashing through her whole _soul_ at the sight in front of her. It had been around a week, more than Lexa had at first planed on staying, and Lexa had been a rather good patient.

It was a total lie. Lexa was cranky and impatient and trying to sit up and move as much as the pain allowed her after the first three days. She was full of sarcasm and frustration, but she was… better than others. As long as she didn’t try to getting up and leaving to go do whatever she was doing in times like these, in Clarke’s mind she was considered a good patient. Her standards were lowered more than she would have liked.

But now, whatever she was doing in times like these seemed to pressure her with its responsibility and Lexa was currently sitting on the edge of the bed, eyes shut closed and chest heaving. Clarke could only glare at her and her quiet little groans of agony and she gritted her teeth against every single instinct medical school had rooted in a place of her brain. _Why was it so difficult for people to understand that at times they had to think long into their future and what was best for them then rather than now?_

“I really think you should stay put”. She wanted to keep her here for one more weak because, really, it hadn’t been an easy surgery nor a simple bullet wound. “One more week”. A side look. “Four more days?”

“I’m sorry, Clarke. My time has run out”.

Clarke lost her inner battle against her urge to roll her eyes. Lexa lifted an eyebrow at her and offered a shaky smirk. “You are dramatic and if you want my opinion–“

“I do”.

“–your time will _actually and truly_ run out if you do anything stupider than this”.

“What do you consider to be stupider than leaving?”

“I don’t know. Taking a piss without someone standing outside your door to make sure you won’t pass out and have internal bleeding”.

“You are… a really peculiar doctor, Clarke”.

“We live in really peculiar times, Lexa”.

“Anything else?”

“I guess just… take it easy. Don’t walk too much. Sleep. Good food if you can find any of it anywhere, and if you do, sent a call to us to join you. If there is fever or pain you come straight back here. If I find out you died I will come after you in the afterlife”.

Lexa laughed a beautiful sound that melted away her frustration, only slightly. She’d grown to like Lexa in the last seven days when she checked up on her. Conversation about anything and everything had been easy with her and the brunette had been awfully respectful and interested about her days. Clarke always found herself with a smile on her mouth when she stopped by her room, three times each day. She didn’t understand why she had grown to care about this woman, maybe it was the friendly nature of their interactions, maybe it was her growing crush and odd affection for her, but she _did_ care and she surely wasn’t going to deny whatever she was feeling, despite it being unexplainable.

Also, Bellamy approved of her attraction to her patient so she was good. Maybe. She didn’t know when Bellamy started to be the most logical friend she had.

“Jesus, just… can you come back in a couple of days? So I check up on you?”

“Do you worry about everyone this much, Clarke?”

“Not everyone”.

Lexa nodded slowly, the amused smile staying in her lips. Clarke felt the rest of her frustration slipping from her body and she thought of taking the step that separated them and kissing this woman to keep her on the bed. To heal. Not anything else. She needed to stop having these fantasies about her patient, even if she was gorgeous.

A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts and Indra’s voice came to her muffled from the other side. This woman was irritating. “ _Lexa, it is time_ ”.

Lexa tried to stand. She didn’t make it, her face draining of blood and a deep broken growl vibrating out of her chest as pain flashed through her stomach. It was like the bullet was still in there. She took a moment to gather her strength, leaning a bit back on the bed and preparing herself for the whip of pain that would surely come.

When a hand wrapped around her upper arm, she forgot about the pain for a split second, the sense of cold fingers touching around her skin and sending electric flashes through her body being a good distraction. Clarke helped her up gently and Lexa saw worry in the breathtaking blue orbs that shinned with uncertainty. Lexa was glad she had stumbled across a good doctor even though Clarke Griffin had an urge to curse far more than a surgeon probably should. It was endearing in a way.

The blonde helped her to the door, opening it for her and passing her over to Gustus, who all but lifted her to carry her back to base. Lexa gently shrugged him off, her body having somehow adjusted to the pain and unsteadiness, her legs able to hold her up.

“Thank you, Clarke”.

“Yeah, yeah, thank me again in a few days”.

Clarke didn’t like the apologetic smile that appeared on Lexa’s mouth. The guards around her formed a muscled scary shield of bodies and Clarke thought once again of who the hell was this woman who needed this much protection.

Lexa’s eyes were sparkling when she turned to look at her over her shoulder. “Don’t worry too much if I don’t come back”.

Clarke huffed, feeling her gut twisting. She leaned against the wall near the door, watching her walk away. “Afterlife is unknown, Lexa, but I truly hope you find a place to hide before I come”.

Yeah, this woman’s laugh was indeed a beautiful sound.

\---

“So she just left”.

“What else was she supposed to do?”

“I don’t know, Griffin, kiss you or something”.

Clarke groaned in her pillow, half wanting to throw it at her friend and half wanting to hide herself in its softness forever. “This is not a fairytale, Raven”.

“Sounds like the beginning of a good love story though”.

“Are you hearing yourself?”

“I always do”.

“And you don’t think you are stupid?”

“Please, I’m the smartest person you know”.

She was but Clarke wouldn’t let her know she thought that.

“Where’s Octavia? I need someone that doesn’t have a melted brain”.

“My brain is just fine”.

“It is melted by all the information it holds”.

Raven frowned on the chair by the desk, lifting her eyes away from the textbook she was studying and staring at the wall for a moment. “I don’t know if I should take that as a complement”.

“See. I say something you don’t expect and your brain overloads”.

“I’m not a cyborg, Clarke”.

“Are you sure? You are already half metal”.

Raven threw said metal at her, the sharp edges digging onto her back and the weight making her groan slightly. Clarke cracked an eye open to glare at her best friend and she shifted to grab the prosthetic off her back.

Raven taped the pen she was holding to her nose and turned to look at Clarke and the prosthetic of her leg. “Would I be cooler if I was a cyborg?”

“I don’t know if the world could handle a cooler Raven Reyes”.

The brunette hummed as if she agreed. “I don’t know, this Lexa sounds cool. I might have competition. Is _she_ a cyborg?”

“No, her tests came back normal”.

“Huh… I’m sure she can’t make a bomb”.

“She can command a small army of rebels”.

Raven crashed something, making Clarke jump lightly and snap her eyes back to her friend, finding her eyes wide and her face pale. “God, Clarke!”

“Just Clarke actually”.

“You fucking idiot! I don’t know if I should hit you with something or fucking kiss you! Don’t you hear yourself? Did she have a tattoo on her arm?”

“Um… Yeah. How do you know that?”

“Jesus Christ, Clarke, your patient was the damned Commander of the American Revolution!”

\---

The Commander was… a big deal. Clarke leaned her head back on her pillow, staring at the dark ceiling and trying to ignore Raven’s quiet snores next to her. She knew of the Commander, everyone did, but very few people actually _knew_ her. The Coalition did a good job keeping the identities of its generals a secret and the Commander was not an exception.

They knew she was a woman and she was young and that she had green eyes and she was a woodcutter, a worker of an industry somewhere up north before the war. It could be lies but the Coalition was somehow built on trust, it was been built by the people, so Clarke didn’t have an _actual reason_ to doubt it. The people were the ones choosing the Coalition’s generals and the generals chose the ambassadors and the ambassadors formed the council that chose the Commander. So really, in a way, the Commander was also the people’s chosen one, even if no one knew her.

Clarke had her doubts. The tattoo on the Commander’s arm was a rumor, just like the fact that she was exceptionally young and beautiful. Sure, Lexa was both of these things but she seemed _way too young_ to be in charge of the whole damn country. And Clarke didn’t expect the Commander to be in what was left of Washington DC, it was way too obvious of a choice for the Coalition’s leader to live here, White House and all. The secrete services and the military thought the same and it was why there were small armies of Reapers holding on in the town. She knew that in other States they wouldn’t dare to step foot anymore but here, despite the rebel’s constant victories against them, they kept doubling up like they were growing from the ground like damned mushrooms.

Raven said she had never actually _met_ the Commander but she had seen her walk around in one of the rebel’s base, looking like a simple fighter rather than the actual leader of the rebel’s army. Truth was Raven wasn’t _sure_ if the woman had been the Commander but she suspected. Clarke did remember that day when Raven had been rumbling on about a brunette woman who had walked around the base as if she owned the place without having been there before, who had called every other chief and person in some kind of higher position into a back room for an endless meeting.

So yeah, the Commander was a big deal and Clarke felt a thrill inside her chest at the thought that she had met her and that she had… a nice relationship with. Lexa had been polite through the whole time Clarke was in the room, her eyes too big and her patience way too thick unlike Indra’s. If it wasn’t for the people around her, who just needed her word to shut up, Lexa hadn’t seemed like a leader, like _the Commander._

Clarke didn’t know what she expected. Maybe a harsher voice and more commands, maybe a woman, who would get in her nerves and wouldn’t _listen_ to what a simple young unexperienced doctor had to say. She had expected the Commander to be somehow tougher rather than a simple young woman barely older than her. But then, Lexa had been shot in the stomach and she had pulled through unimaginable pain without a single drop of morphine or a painkiller or some decent kind of food the hospital couldn’t provide. If that wasn’t tough then Clarke didn’t know what was.

The thing most troubling her, was that the Commander wasn’t supposed to be so undoubtingly _human._ Lexa did not seem like the person who gave an order to have someone hunted down and executed publicly. She didn’t seem like the person who would split up and banish a squad of anarchists out of the city because they did not follow through an order from the Coalition. She also did not seem to be the person who had under her rule a whole country that was being burned to the ground.

Against her best judgement, Clarke nudged Raven. As she expected, the growl that crawled out of her friend’s body was nothing like a sound a human should make.

Her voice was dangerous. “What do you want?”

Clarke bit her lower lip, not knowing if she wished to have Octavia with her or not. The younger Blake was way scarier than Raven when she was shook awake. Bellamy was also terrifying when he woke up and really, what was wrong with her friends and sleep? “I want to talk about the Commander”.

“God, Clarke, your crush is getting out of control”.

“I don’t think Lexa is the Commander”.

“Well, I do think Lexa is the Commander”.

“She was way too… gentle”.

“Gentle?”

“Yes. And soft”.

“Are you sure you two didn’t fuck?”

“I’m serious”.

“No, Clarke, I love you and I support you but you are not serious if you wake me up before dawn to talk political figures”.

“I want to find her again”.

“Good luck with that. I am sure she doesn’t stay in one place for long”.

Clarke’s stomach sunk. “I told her to come back by the hospital in a few days”.

“Griffin”, Raven sighed heavily, turned to face her with soft eyes. “I don’t think she’ll come back if she is who we think she is”.

“I’m getting obsessed, right?”

“Just a little bit, you talk like you are losing the love of your life”.

“Yes, I need to stop thinking about it. But it’s… the _Commander_ , you know, and Lexa wasn’t anything like I expected the commander to be”.

“And I am sure it doesn’t help she was hot as fuck”.

Clarke laughed. She didn’t even try to deny it. “No, it really doesn't”.

“Go to sleep, Griffin. The world is small, revolution is a beautiful chapter in history and your paths may cross again”.

She hoped so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this some kind of plot shining there??? Could be.
> 
> First, let me say, I love Raven fucking Reyes with my whole soul. Also in this fic, Lexa is just a tiny tiny bit more open about her feelings and more carefree than cannon so yeah. Revolution is a good time for someone to live in I guess.
> 
> We are going to start exploring the war setting a bit more in the later chapters, trigger warnings will start to come up in the notes in the beginning of every chapter but I am dropping the warning here as well, this story will get slightly darker than this. Send me headcannons tho, I'm asking for your thoughts about this, don't be shy!


	4. Chapter 4

Clarke literally smacked against a wall when her eyes caught sight of her again. She had to do a double take, then a third one, just to make sure she was not imagining things.

But nope, Lexa had come back and she was sitting outside her mother’s office, hands on her lap, fingers tangled together, looking like she badly regretting every choice in her life and mostly her decision to come back. Abby Griffin had her arms crossed as she looked down at Lexa as if she was waiting for an answer about the exact political state of the North America at this exact moment of time.

Gustus was next to her and Clarke was sure that his automatic rifle and the pistol on his waist didn’t help in the situation.

“Uh, Doctor Griffin?” Clarke cleared her throat pointedly, making a look of both relief and frustration fall over Lexa’s stoic face. Knowing her mother, Clarke could imagine the questions the brunette had been subjected to, questions not safe to be asked at times like these. She was half sure Lexa believed her mother was CIA or the secrete services. “She’s here for me”.

“I figured, Clarke. She asked for Doctor Griffin and I have never seen her before”.

“Technically, I am Doctor Griffin”.

“So am I”.

She breathed out. Slowly. They had had this conversation a million times before but a patient was there in front of them now and Clarke guessed her mother would at least respect Lexa and drop it for now.

Either way, she figured out she didn’t really want to find out. “Follow me, Lexa, Gustus. I apologize for the confusion”.

She led them in room 3S and had Lexa sit on the stretcher, sighing lightly as Gustus opted to check the room and then wait outside. Clarke cleared her throat quietly and instead of approaching her patient, she lifted an eyebrow and stared at the walking stick Lexa balanced on the stretcher.

“Do you care to discuss the cane or the limp of your left leg first?”

“I believe they are connected in a way”, Lexa worked her jaw lightly but she did send an apologetic look her way.

Lexa straightened her back. She was dressed down, a dark grey hoodie with a hood, dark tight pants and heavy boots. She looked exactly her age and Clarke had to hold her breath for a moment to not do anything stupid that proved the possibility she might be standing in front of the Commander. Hell, she didn’t look like a leader, she didn’t even look like a simple rebel and she did not have any weapons, at least not visible ones. Clarke hadn’t met anyone not carrying a gun.

“Will I find the stitches like I remember?”

Lexa hesitated lightly at that. Clarke groaned internally because of Lexa’s cuteness and her own frustration.

“Probably not”.

“Lay back, please”, Clarke huffed, pulling on her gloves. “It wasn’t an easy surgery”.

“I was out of it, I wouldn’t know”.

Clarke gulped down a laugh before it had time to appear in her face. At least the attitude was still intact. “Smartass…”

The stitches were redone and they were a bit crocked to the side, the skin slightly more red than Clarke would have liked. There was a dark bruise on Lexa’s side and Clarke gritted her teeth at the sight, checking to see if the ribs were in place. Lexa’s skin was cool under her glove and Clarke sighed, trying to ignore the goosebumps that appeared on the woman’s skin at the touch.

“What happened?”

“I was just… I, uh, I really shouldn’t say, Doctor Griffin”.

“Clarke. We have been through this”.

Lexa nodded slowly, eyes curious.

“Any pain?”

“No”.

“Lexa, I swear to God…”

“It hurts but it feels more like an inconvenient rather than an alarming sign”.

“Good. Any fever?”

“No”.

“And your leg?”

Lexa hesitated again and Clarke rolled her eyes at the other woman. “Look, Lexa, I pulled a bullet out your gut which makes me your doctor and since you came back it means you think so as well. So tell me. There is still the doctor-patient confidential”.

The green eyes grew guarded for a moment before Lexa’s face was wiped off any emotion in a split second with an impressive manner. “I don’t know you, Clarke”.

Clarke deflected lightly but didn’t push more. She gave a small nod and backtracked, peeling off her gloves. For a moment her eyes drew down to the blue material in her palm and she frowned; she needed to use less of them.

She cleared her throat, lifting her blue eyes to meet the green ones, seeing them shining with a guarded apology. “I didn’t expect you to come back”.

“I didn’t expect to come back either. Your threat about the afterlife stuck”.

The frustration melted away from Clarke’s body and she chuckled, seeing a similar smile appear on Lexa’s mouth. She stared at it for a moment, considering once again to lean forwards and capture those kissable lips in her own. She needed to snap out of it because it was wrong and something Raven would be proud of. Anything that made Raven proud was a bad idea nowadays.

“Well, you are all fine, but, yet again, I would strongly advise you to not do anything like whatever you did and got you a limped leg and ripped stiches. You should not even be on your feet just yet, it’s too soon. Be more careful”.

Lexa nodded with amusement. “Or you will come after me”.

A tight knot loosened in Clarke’s chest and she felt herself soften despite her better judgment. She didn’t even know this woman and yet, here she was, feeling as if she had spent a lifetime next to her rather than a week. Just like the first time she had seen her –bleeding heavily on a stretcher– Lexa felt oddly familiar.

“No, it’s just… Be more careful”.

The woman cleared her throat, snapping her out of her thoughts. “Uh, Clarke, may I ask you a question?”

She looked terribly nervous all of the sudden and Clarke lifted an eyebrow, leaning back on the bedside table as she studied Lexa like one of her medical textbooks. Her green eyes had a shadow of anxiety over them and her lips were pressed only lightly but other than that, her face didn’t betray a thing. She wasn’t the Commander of the Coalition, Clarke was damned sure of it, even if she fitted everything the rumors had described.

“Shoot”.

“Have we met? I mean, before the war?”

Clarke slowly gulped and shrugged, her heart giving a few heavy beats in her chest as it pumped her up with blood and a hint of excitement. Apparently, she was not the only one feeling weirdly comfortable.

“I don’t remember. But I also feel like we have”.

“Yeah, uh, I came to Washington after the beginning of the war so… There’s no way I have met you here before but… have you ever been to New Hampshire?”

She was from up north. _Lexa was from up fucking north_. Jesus Christ, Clarke’s mind desperately raced as she tried to think if New Hampshire had woods around or some kind of lumber industry placed there. She didn’t fucking _know_ and Clarke helplessly groaned at the fact that internet wasn’t a thing anymore so she could look it up.

The fucking Commander was from a state norther than Washington DC and every inch in her gut _begged_ Clarke to just fucking ask the woman if she was the unofficial leader of the United States of America.

“Clarke? Are you alright?”

Clarke sighed and took the damned step forwards because she felt like this was not the first time Lexa asked her this with _that_ voice and _that_ tone. She took the step forwards, taking the woman’s face in her hands and pressing a firm kiss on her lips. She ignored the surprised gasp from Lexa and she honestly needed to pull back in this exact second and _apologize_ for not checking if she had the woman’s permission to kiss her.

But then Lexa’s hand was gripping at the front of her white robe to pull her just a bit closer and have her lean over Lexa as she still sat on the stretcher. Clarke sighed, her heart thumbing against her ribcage, hands moving to tangle in the wild long brown strands of hair. Her knees felt weak under her weight and it didn’t help that Lexa smelled fucking amazing, like rain, wet dirt and fresh wind and lightly like smoke and gasoline.

Lexa pulled back, softly nudging their noses together when she turned her head and took in some shallow breaths. Clarke shuddered lightly as a hand slipped under her robe to press on her side and… knocked against her gun.

They both pulled back and she expected to find shock in the green orbs but she only found a gentle and sad understanding. It was gone a moment later and Lexa’s hand was sliding away, way too long fingers hooking in her belt loops sinfully, a light smirk crossing her face.

“You are my doctor, Clarke. This is unprofessional”.

She groaned, “I swear to God, if I hear this word ever again…”

Lexa chuckled and slowly hopped on her feet, leaning her weight on the right leg just a bit more. They were impossibly close like this and with Lexa smelling this good and her lips looking so deliciously wet… Clarke didn’t think she wanted to move away.

“What time does you shift end?”

Clarke laughed and had to lean on Lexa for a moment as her chuckles brought her forwards lightly. She looked up at the calm green eyes and smirked. “Are you asking me on a date in the middle of the warzone, Lexa?”

The older woman groaned lightly. “I almost forgot”.

“It’s been a year, kind of difficult to forget”.

“Well”, Lexa smirked down at her and slowly leaned in. This kiss was deeper than the previous one, a lot more tongue and pressure and less breathing and it was over way too soon.

Lexa chuckled as glaring blue eyes looked up at her. She fixed a lock of blonde hair behind the woman’s ear and smiled. “You are a very good distraction, Clarke Griffin”.

“Get out of here, Lexa”, Clarke tried to be firm but her eyes were laughing and Lexa felt as if this was something she had longed to see all her life.

“When should I come back?”

“Don’t you have more important things to do than go on dates with blonde girls?”

“No, I don’t think I do”.

Clarke huffed and bit her lip and finally pulled back, needing some space if she was going to think this through. Lexa felt like… a safe place and it wasn’t something that a stranger should feel like. Those kisses also shouldn’t feel like a greeting after a long time of parting. Lexa didn’t feel like a stranger but she _was_ and the times they lived in weren’t trusting times.

And then there was this possibility that became more and more real with every piece of information falling from Lexa’s lips about herself. If this was truly the Commander then Clarke had no business to be with her more than necessary. There was an army of Reapers in the streets looking for her, the military still bombed any building that could be the Commander’s safe house, there was surely some warrant out there for anyone that might have had a close relationship with any member of the Coalition….

So if Lexa was the Commander then Clarke should be smart about this and keep her distance. She didn’t need another reason to dread to go home to find a group of masked Reapers waiting for her, she didn’t need another reason to check the lists of the daily dead to find Raven or Octavia or Bellamy or even her mother’s name in line.

But then again, Lexa looked so damned beautiful in that moment and so at ease to be close to her when she had a gun strapped under her robe and Clarke wanted to find out more about this pull she felt to this woman. There was no way she could know Lexa was the Commander and if she even was, then Clarke guessed she would never make this offer to someone without being able to offer _some_ protection as she was probably the only person that would know of the dangers better than anyone.

Clarke was overthinking it and Lexa was so charmingly patient with her and Clarke softened and leaned in again. The kiss was sweat and full of promises Clarke doubted if either of them could hold. “Come by at nine”.

Lexa smiled brightly at her and nodded, green eyes warm. If she was the Commander then Clarke would have to sit down over that huge book of psychology to find some scientific explanation of how one woman could be two completely different people.

\---

Octavia passed up and down the hospitals break room. “ _You_ kissed _her_?”

“Why is that the thing that shocks you the most? I have kissed plenty of people”.

“Clarke, do you recall how many years it’s been since you came close to someone?”

Clarke didn’t really remember. She was sure it was way before the start of the war. It was when she was chasing that degree with every piece of her soul and she did not have time to even lift her head from the uncountable books. Then there was the first dead people left on the streets and between juggling the last year of medical school, the demonstrations and her mother’s disappointment that she wasn’t as focused on her studies as she should have been, well… She hadn’t dated anyone in a long time.

She groaned into her hands making Octavia chuckle. “Exactly”. She was starting to resent her friend’s stops by to see Lincoln in the hospital’s security room.

“What if I mess it up?”

“Chill, dude, you are not going to marry her. Just try to smell less like a pharmacy”.

“Thanks, O, you are real help”.

“That’s what friends are for, Clarkey!”

Octavia and Raven needed to spend way less time together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, they have met in another damn life and yes, I totally went for the cliché soulmate thing because I love them and I want them together as soon as possible, don't judge me too much.
> 
> I'm a sucker for people pulling their significant others by their clothes to kiss them and Lexa will be doing this a lot to Clarke because reasons.
> 
> Also what the hell, an apdate two days after the last one, I think I am spoiling you way too much but the story has grown on me and I want the feedback. I fucking love your comments and your love about the story and keep them coming; they make me a happy little writer.
> 
> Trigger warnings will start to come up later on, folks, keep that in mind, please, a plot is starting to built itself in my mind and it is not very pretty. Excuse any mistakes, English is not my first language, point them out if you want so I can change them.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings; starvation, violation of human rights, police brutality, violence, terrorism

Clarke laughed. Didn’t chuckle or scoffed or snorted, she _laughed_ , more than five seconds and with short breaths and sound because this was surreal and once she found out she was still capable of laughing with pleasure filling her chest, she didn’t want to stop.

“You brought me to _dinner_?”

Lexa was smiling, open and wide, her green eyes twinkling under the dull yellow light spilling from the cracked lambs. “I mean… it seemed fitting for a first date, right?”

Clarke eyed the people in line and the laugher slowly died on her tongue as she took in the sight of them. She almost felt guilty for expressing her sudden blissful surprise so openly; there were eyes filled with darkness shifting away from her, frowned eyebrows easing up as soon as the sound of her laugh faded in the cold night. It was as if the life was sucked out of Clarke all over again and she leaned against the warm body next to her, trying to find the comfort, trying to ignore the hallow pit in her gut and the sense of it growing some more. It had been a tiring day.

The green orbs were filled with melancholy but Lexa’s smile was easy, reaching up to her eyes and offering some of its spark there. Lexa didn’t seem to mind the heaviness of the people around them, who stood in a silent long line, patiently waiting for their own turn for some food after another long day.

It had been a few weeks after the army had been released on the streets and anyone out past curfew had been shot down, when the super markets and the shelves were emptied from any food. It had been a month later when the stores had stopped restocking and the prices had climbed impossibly fast. It had been seven months _before_ the Coalition official declared open war against the state, when the corpses on the streets were dead due to starvation rather than the machine guns.

Clarke remembered feeling as if her body was too weak to hold her up, too cold to keep moving. There was a constant tight grip around her stomach, squeezing with its icy fingers and making shudders crash down her limps and muscles, sucking out her strength. It had taken a small while for the Coalition to manage to settle a system to find and provide enough food to everyone in every neighborhood and working place, the local street gangs and squads and workers’ unions being the first alliances to be formed, every person searching ways to set up more meals and food stands and feed the entire city.

It was practical. Three meals each day being served, the rations slowly getting more as the weeks passed and the Coalition managed to organize multiple things at once. The people started to be able to stand properly again, the hallow look in their eyes being filled up with anger again, anger for those who didn’t hesitate to let the die of starvation just to keep their dominant place in power.

But it didn’t stop; as soon as the people started to stand on their feet yet again, the terrorization started, brutal and unforgiving and wanting everyone to fall back into place. Clarke still remembered the times she’d wait in line with Raven or Octavia or Bellamy barely able to stay up on their own shaky feet and tear gas would unexpectedly fall on them from _somewhere_ without caring of the families, the children, the people with any kind of disability. She didn’t think she would ever forget the terror of the people around them as they dissolved in clear panic with the tear gas _burning_ down their throats and noses and lungs, police around them, doped up with drugs, batons and Tasers, punching and hitting and arresting everyone they could reach.

Clarke would never forget shouting instructions to everyone that would listen, Raven screaming to her to take the lead and get the children and their families out, Octavia and Bellamy being a small protective pair, trying to talk down the policemen to get some time to Clarke and Raven to grab the families, with experience they had gotten in college. Clarke wouldn’t forget finding the Blake siblings later on, bruises forming on their skin, blood drying on their clothes, their voice relieved at finding out the kids were terrified but safe.

It had taken armed groups standing guard to stop such attacks. They pushed away the police forces at first, the soldiers later, the Reapers now, at the rare times they attacked. There would be groups fighting a few steps away, other teams would lead the lined unarmed people away to safety, people would pack up the food and take it away for later.

It had been a long while since then and by now, mostly everyone had started to settle more comfortably in the lines again, had stopped looking around every three seconds.

“You are a cheesy romantic, aren’t you?”

Lexa’s smile crooked to the side, widening lightly. She had changed from the clothes she wore earlier in the hospital, the grey hoodie replaced by a black one, a jacket on, her jeans changed into soft dark sweatpants. Clarke wondered if she lived close and if this was why she looked so damn comfortable, leaning lightly on her thin cane and looking around with a spark in her eyes.

“Guilty as charged”.

Clarke couldn’t help but smile again. They were not too far away from the hospital, the buildings familiar and lived in. They were downtown and most of the old shops were completely sealed around them, tents and benches set up around forming a small camp on the concrete wide streets. A building that used to be a gallery to their right was wide opened, soft gold light spilling from the inside, flickering as if it was coming from a bonfire. Most of the big stores and buildings were turned into bases and Clarke wondered of the people that seemed to live in this one. She didn’t have many chances to spent time inside one of them and she always wondered of the way these tiny communities worked in each building, all of them working separated but at the same time all together, with their sleeping champers and community kitchens and bathrooms and gardens and armories. The Coalition was urging the residents of the apartment buildings to adopt the same way of working and really, she had not really expected the communists to speak so highly of autonomy.

“Seriously though, I didn’t expect dinner”.

Lexa nodded slowly, eyes flickering over her face. “I guessed you’d be hungry after your shift”, she said slowly, a hand rubbing at her sharp jawline mindlessly. Clarke took the chance and lifted her own hand, replacing Lexa’s fingers with her own, just to feel the smooth skin of the impressive curve there. Lexa smiled again, comfortable and at ease under her touch and Clarke… Clarke drank this woman’s openness as if it was water on a hot day. “And, it did seem fitting for a first date”.

Clarke nodded slowly, shifting on her feet as they took a step forwards as the line moved. “I felt like dates had died with our old world”.

Lexa was looking down at her, eyes wide and guarded and damn, she was really beautiful in the annoying yellow light. “Is that… You sound as if you don’t like the… you know, what is happening now”.

Clarke paused at the nervous words and looked up with a frown, searching the green eyes. The air between them was suddenly heavy for the first time as they studied each other, trying to figure out more than what had been said, to figure out where the other stood.

“ _Look, Lexa, I pulled a bullet out your gut which makes me your doctor and since you came back it means you think so as well. So tell me. There is still the doctor-patient confidential”._

“ _I don’t know you, Clarke_ ”.

Clarke had to clear her throat to manage to get words out. “I miss the routine. That is all”. The tension left her body the next second and she felt a smile pull at her lips as she kept looking at Lexa’s face. She tugged at the woman’s hoodie and smiled against a surprised gasp falling from Lexa’s parted lips. Lexa seemed to be caught off guard a lot around her and Clarke... Clarke didn't feel like it was the first time this was happening. “Don’t get me wrong, I am all about romance in the revolution”.

Lexa chuckled, but it was a weak and breathless sound, and the kiss she pressed on Clarke’s lips was awed and soft and something roared in the blonde’s chest with a blissful feeling. It shouldn’t feel like she had done this a million times before, leaning up to meet Lexa’s mouth in the softest of kisses, feeling Lexa’s fingers digging lightly at her hips to keep her close, having her own hand slowly turning around a thin waist to press against the woman’s lower back, feeling so very familiar with having the soft warmth radiating from Lexa’s body.

The clearing of a throat had them parting and they both turned towards the sound, towards an older woman standing behind them and looked as if it physically pained her to look at them. And as right as it had felt to press her lips to Lexa’s, it felt just as wrong to have some damn stranger look at them like they did something they should not and, for fuck’s sake, the United States of America were in the middle of a raging civil war and these were times with dead people been murdered in their houses for information and anyone could be the next corpse found and there were _far_ _more important things_ someone could do than act on their homophobic shit.

Lexa seemed to have the same thoughts to some extent. Her voice was cutting and sharp and so damn _different_ than the one she used when she addressed Clarke and the blonde was as shocked as the woman behind them to see the brunette’s gentle and once soft face changing to something hard and unforgiving. “Seriously?”

For her sake, the older brunette woman seemed sorry at last. She raised a hand and cleared her throat, uncomfortable under the cold green eyes. “I apologize. I am still getting used to the change of everything”.

Lexa’s face didn’t soften at the apology; if possible, it seemed to harden even more. Clarke couldn’t really blame her, she felt hot anger wrapping around her throat at the words and Lexa’s hand on her hip was the only thing keeping her still. “Oh, so we are calling the actual establishment of human rights and freedom the change of everything now“

“Look, I am sorry, I don’t want to fight”.

“Then keep your bullshit to yourself”, Clarke snapped, tugging Lexa away, a few feet closer to the long table they used to serve the food. “Asshole”, she mumbled quietly as they stepped away, offering their bowls to the man behind the table to fill them with the cooling past and the tomato sauce. The delicious scent managed to soothe some of her anger.

Lexa tugged her arm before she turned to search for a seat in the benches placed around. She nodded towards the old gallery and tugged her arm again, her eyes still dark but less cold, her muscles still locked but her movements less sharp. “I have a very specific plan for this date, Clarke, please, come with me”.

The words pulled a smile from her and she looked at Lexa with adoration, feeling as if the emotions settling in her gut had arrived way too soon. Clarke knew Lexa less than a week and she knew even less of her but she still felt as if standing next to her was everything she might have ever wanted.

To her surprise, Lexa actually led her inside the opened gate of the old gallery and the blonde froze at the doorway at the sight in front of her. The space was big and wide, all high ceilings and clean marble and organized shelves filled with heavy books and piles of fliers and newspapers and uncountable lit _candles_. There were more candles in here than Clarke had seen in her life and their soft golden light bathed the whole room gently and softly and Clarke sent a payer of thankfulness to whatever god or higher power there was because seeing Lexa’s green eyes reflecting the uncountable small flames was surely some kind of blessing.

There were people settled around, eating, talking, reading. They seemed at ease, like they were home, feet popped up on tables and chairs and bodies buried in blankets and sleeping bags. There was the soft mumble of talking and laughter coming from the separated groups, a clear contrast to the automatic rifles that were placed within reach from everyone. Most of them looked up as soon as they came inside but a look at Lexa and they eased back to whatever they were doing, very few of them sparing them a second glance.

Lexa led them through bookshelves and desks, every surface covered with organized piles of everything and anything. From cases with pens and cans of paint to boxes of glass bottles already filled with gasoline. Clarke was suddenly overwhelmed by the amount of trust Lexa was showing at her at the moment as she led her through this rebels’ base that was filled with supplies and written information of _everything_. Lexa didn’t seem to think she was a spy or something and it was way too much for the moment, so she didn’t object when they reached a line of stairs and started to climb them up.

She offered her arm to Lexa so the woman gain some support and she could only glare at her, her throat too tight to let out any words. Lexa leaned on her and on her cane and Clarke took her bowl of cold pasta in her own hold so Lexa could press a soft hand to her belly, just below her stiches. Clarke thought the woman next to her was more than lucky the blonde was shocked speechless for the time being.

They reached the roof and Clarke sighed as she pushed open the metallic door for Lexa and stepped outside the chilly air of the approaching winter. And she could only curse quietly because she was only now finding her voice and she was slammed with the beautiful image in front of her. Lexa did have put time and a plan to this date and Clarke was sure her mind would come up with the appropriate comments later once her brain started to work again.

There was handmade couch made of wooden pallets, covered with thick pillows and blankets and there were more candles placed around to cast a soft practical light on the roof, a vase with flowers placed on the floor next to the pillows and Lexa was a damn romantic indeed, wasn’t she?

“Lexa… Did you have people bring all these stuff up here?”

“No, of course not, Clarke”.

“Is this how you got your limp?”

Lexa seemed even more confused. “What?”

“Your leg, Lexa, if you didn’t have other people carrying pallets up here….”

She was cut off by Lexa’s full light laugh, the sound being dragged away by the soft wind. “No, no, these had been here already. I just brought the flowers”.

“It’s beautiful”, Clarke breathed out.

Lexa seemed pleased and she nodded as well, as if she was also seeing it all for the first time. The building wasn’t high enough to have the whole city showed to them, but they were still high and Clarke could see the dark shapes of the buildings around, the faint light lightening up the streets. She looked up and felt her lungs completely giving up their work as wonder filled her chest.

She had never had such a clear sight of the night sky before the war, before the state took down the electricity and left the whole country and its people to get by without it after so many decades of everything depending on it. It had been funny, the way the fall of the government and then the fall of the companies and their billionaires, the fall of the whole system, had stripped everything from the people in just a few moments.

Electricity was the first thing been taken away, the food supplies came second, and then came the communications, the running water, the money, the sense of safety. In a few days everything had collapsed and their enemies’ last vicious attack was to take away everything from the people, all at once. It was scary how much their lives had been completely controlled by a handful of people, who just… pulled a plug and had left the whole country into complete chaos, taking with them every right and possession in a freefall without a parachute.

The Coalition put it all in place, slowly but steadily, the people setting the pace of everything. The distribution of food came first. Then, some of the most important factories started to work again, fuel for generators was given out. The distribution of weapons came later and it felt easier to walk around, easier to breathe. Electricity was coming and going but a year in and they soon found out they didn’t need it as much. It was worse in the winter, the heat nonexistent but there were thick clothes given, there were bonfires in the streets and camps set around them and in a way, it was warmer outside rather in the dark and cold apartment buildings.

The people were only now starting to settle in this new life, keep supporting this vision of another society which stood on humanity’s kindest nature that had been hidden away as weakness and as impractical thoughts and… Clarke was only now starting to believe there was some goodness in the people, her wariness about the humanity’s nature being proven wrong with every demonstration or victory feast, every celebration and general meeting. People were kind beings when they put aside their differences; they were soulful and gentle, full of solidarity for each other’s needs when they worked for the same goal.

Their goal at the moment was another world and it was only now starting to show hints of what it could be like in the long run. Clarke dared to imagine having her own tiny garden in her small balcony and walking to work with lighter steps, her eyes not falling on homeless balls of limps, on people begging for a couple of dollars to get through the day. Clarke dared to imagine sitting with Raven and Bellamy in a huge general meeting and listening to Octavia give a passionate speech full of cursing and swear words that would make the children scream and cover their tiny ears with laugher. She dared to imagine waking up in the middle of the night with the flames of her candles having burned out and look at the starry night out of her window and lose herself at the sight like every time she’d look up, she dared to imagine a thin strong arm wrapped around her and pulling her closer into the sleeping body.

“Clarke?”

And Clarke only knew Lexa for a week, _less than that_ , but here she stood, taking in the soft scent of melting wax and the mouthwatering smell of pasta and watching Lexa relaxing visibly and looking at her with wide and happy eyes and, well, Clarke was sure she was in love with woman and she dared to imagine Lexa with her as they fought every possible battle just to make this peaceful world a damn reality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is going to be a time when I won't be updating every two days and all of us -yes, including me- will be shocked by that event. Also, sue me, I'm a romantic deep down and Lexa is my weak spot, okay? I'm sure my Clarke appreciates my Lexa. Comment on the characters though, I feel like I am making them way too different from cannon.
> 
> Trigger Warnings, guys, war setting being explored for the first time. I was gentle, right? Tell me what you thought of that. Any ideas and headcannons and stuff throw them at me, I love writing given ideas. Excuse any mistakes.
> 
> Also I found out there is the state Washington and then there is Washington DC and they are completely different and what the hell, my dear Americans? Why are you like this? I was so damn confused for a long while about this.


	6. Chapter 6

“Socialism”.

Lexa hesitated before shaking her head slowly. “I mean… It’s practical but no, no, it’s not the ultimate goal, I guess”.

They were sitting on wet green grass of the park just outside what was left of the old police station and Clarke really minded just the tiny bit about the moisture soaking the back of her pants. But the ground here had an upwards bent and they had a full view of the people settling around the concrete of the wide road, of the small crowd forming slowly. She wondered how the hell she hadn’t spotted Lexa in a general meeting before but she guessed that the Commander of the Coalition was forced to have a discreet presence. That was if Lexa really was the Commander, Clarke didn’t know how the hell to ask so she kept silent about her thoughts.

“God, I knew you were a communist”.

Lexa rolled her eyes at the tone and shot her a look. “They are not that bad”.

“They are so full of themselves, Lexa. They talk as if they have every shit figured out and, honestly, they claim to talk for the people without the actual people”.

“They are passionate and confident. I agree they have some ego and many of them come off as arrogant assholes but they did put some organization to all of it. They were the ones that took the riots a step forward”.

Clarke nodded slowly, eyeing the crowd for any of her friends but there were too many people to be able to spot anyone between them. “That’s the only reason they managed to gain the people’s trust. They really good at organizing this and react to tough situations, sure, but ideologically” –she shook her head– “I just feel them so far away, you know, I can’t relate to anything they are saying”.

Lexa tilted her head slowly, as if she was considering her words, her big green eyes scanning the people in front of them, looking for something or someone. It had been a few weeks since their date in the roof of the old gallery and, since then, they had met a few more times, Clarke burying herself with work and Lexa off to do whatever she was doing in times like these. Everything had been smooth and easy but there’d been reports of vicious brutal fights in Brooklyn between the army and the rebels, the blows too sudden and too many, overwhelming their people there and worrying the people here. It was never easy to find out they were losing in another state.

“The Coalition was a good call, Jesus, probably the best one, I can give that to them, you cannot not have any organization against… capitalism. They are practical and they value the people but my problem is with them not taking us into account. It is like they want us to just… follow and that’s not how it works. I get that they have a strong ambition to change the world but, hell, they need to step down a few levels”.

Lexa huffed quietly, still deep in thought, still searching the crowd. “You agree that capitalism was the issue to everything?”

“Sure was and there are some communist parties with a good analyses and stuff but most of them, no, they are too full of shit. They have a _written_ _program_ , which looks more like a manual, for the steps the revolution should take, Lexa, and the worst thing is that they are trying to stick to it despite whatever is happening. You cannot predict how these things can go, especially at times like this”.

“You are saying you cannot have a program of how to take down capitalism?”

“Yes, the revolution can’t be scripted. And did you see what they’re proposing now? They want a second rebel army to tear down the NATO bases. Who is going to be part of that second army? People are still afraid to get out of their houses and with everything happening in Brooklyn? How are they still pushing it?”

Clarke sipped her tea, straightening her bent back and hearing a few cracks here and there. It was a tiring day and she was still in shock she had managed to get out of the hospital just in time for the general meeting. Her head was pounding lightly and she was sure she had dark half-moons under her eyes but she wanted to be here and Lexa had been way too gentle and understanding when she stopped by the hospital with some warm bread and asked her if she had time to join her. They needed more staff; their shifts were getting far too stretched out and filled with too much work. A part of her begged her to just go home and take a nap for a couple of hours.

“Yeah”, Lexa slowly nodded her head. “I know what you are saying and I agree with the written steps they have and are always trying to enforce. They should pay more attention to the actual people rather than their own beliefs”.

Clarke’s eyes caught Octavia in the crowd, her friend looking tiny next to Lincoln and she lifted her heavy arm, trying to get their attention. They were standing far away and she doubted Octavia would see them, but she counted on her friend’s reflexes that were exceptionally sharp and as soon as Clarke’s arm shot up, Octavia’s eyes snapped on the sudden movement. She waved back and nodded before turning to Lincoln and pointing their way.

“I’m glad at least the communist party in Coalition is slightly different”, Clarke continued, relaxing next to Lexa and sighing as a warm hand landed on her thigh mindlessly, Lexa’s thumb rubbing softly.

“Ah, Leninists, yes”, Lexa mumbled softly, her eyebrows frowned as she still looked around and Clarke wondered who she was looking for. She did not know much of Lexa’s personal life, only that she had settled on Washington DC the last couple of months and she had no parents or close relatives other than Gustus, who was like a step-uncle from her father’s side and had travelled with her here. “It is very easy to talk with them”.

 _How would she know?_ Clarke looked at the woman’s profile, feeling her stomach dropping lightly at the words. She hadn’t pushed to find out of her thoughts about Lexa and the Commander were true because she was terrified of both answers; if the green eyed woman confirmed she was indeed the official leader of the revolutionary civil war, then Clarke would have to pull the fuck away from Lexa, keep her distance and her head down because it was fucking _dangerous_ to be so close to her when the Commander was the first target of every Reaper and secret service and soldier. If she wasn’t the Commander, Lexa was a little shit despite her collected, calm and mature exterior and she would never let Clarke live it down.

“So you are not a communist”.

Lexa smirked softly. “No”.

Clarke snapped her eyes on her and Lexa turned to look back at her, lifting a well-defined eyebrow. “You are not an anarchist if you cringe at the sight of their flier and you don’t really look like an anarchist anyway”.

“Those three are not the only political movements or proposed social systems there are, Clarke”, Lexa laughed, her eyes sparkling like they always did when she teased.

Clarke chuckled as well, punching the woman’s shoulder. “It’d be easier to guess if you could just _tell me_ why you pulled that face about this”. She all but smacked the flier with the black circled A to Lexa’s face, who laughed and grabbed the paper from her hold, her eyes lowering to scan the words, her face staying stoic and unreadable this time. Clarke was amazed by her ability to wipe every thought from her face in a couple of seconds.

“I don’t like the way they sign everything with just the A symbol. There are different squads and anarchy parties and different beliefs about whatever is happening now. But they all have the tendency to hide their differences behind the symbol. At least communists sign with their party’s name rather than only the hammer and sickle. It is not a time for people to hide any part of their truth, not with the Reapers and the political alliance and the Coalition trying to move it forwards. Differences should be out in the open”.

Clarke nodded slowly, looking at Octavia and Lincoln as they finally waved through the crowd and the sitting people towards them. Bellamy was behind them but Clarke couldn’t spot Raven and she gritted her teeth, wishing phones were still a thing.

“Why do you have this face?” Clarke raised her voice to gain Bellamy’s attention and she softly gripped Lincoln’s hand as a greeting. Octavia plopped down next to her on the grass and glared at her brother.

“I don’t like that the meeting is happening here”, Bellamy answered, shooting a look at Lexa with curiosity. “The attacks are getting more and more each day”.

“Well, the patrol is in place, the block is secure, there are opened buildings around to protect the families and the elders, what’s the problem?” Octavia huffed but she shook her head at Bellamy and leaned forward, not really wanting an answer from him. She smirked at Lexa and thrusted a gloved hand out. “You must be Lexa”.

“You must be Octavia”. Lexa smiled politely, her face slightly hardened but her eyes were kind. Her smile widened when Clarke scoffed down at their joined hands just in front of her chest. “Lincoln”.

“Hey, Lexa”.

Clarke almost dropped her cup of black tea as she gapped at her friend’s boyfriend. Octavia seemed just as shocked, her eyes shifting from Clarke to Lincoln to Lexa and back on Clarke, horror, surprise and betrayal in her gaze. They had talked more than a few times in front of him about Clarke’s crush when the relationship between her and Lexa had only been a doctor-patient one. “You _know_ each other?”

“Lincoln, what the hell? We have been talking about what Clarke wants to do to Lexa in front of you for weeks!”

Clarke chocked on her own spit and she lowered her head as Lexa’s chuckle reached her ears and she felt her face burning. That would be a great fucking time for a small army of Reapers to attack them and make this embarrassment disappear _now_.

“She lives with us in the courthouse for a couple of days”, Lincoln said, the damned little traitor. It usually took everything in Clarke’s willpower to not kill this couple.

“Ah, the infamous Lexa then”, Bellamy looked down at Clarke with sympathy as he slowly settled on the ground in front of them. He shook Lexa’s hand with an easy smile, getting her attention for Clarke to gather herself and her murderous thoughts. “I’m Bellamy. You are more beautiful than Clarke described if that’s even possible”.

Lexa scoffed at that and shook her head. “You are smoother than Clarke described. It’s nice finally meeting you”.

“Hello? I am right here?” Clarke leaned against Lexa’s side, a thin arm immediately snaking around her waist to hold her close. She was not at all embarrassed by her possessiveness; it felt better than the mortification she had been subjected to by her own self and her so called best friend.

“Clarke, hello, I am having a conversation with your girlfriend for the first time and I am trying to ignore my concern of the possibility of a tear gas attack. Can you let me meet Lexa properly and talk some sense to my sister who thinks she came for a nice afternoon walk downtown?”

Clarke fought her urge to snarl at him, his smooth words and the parenting tone he surely used on the kids he taught in school. “I can do that when I trust you won’t flirt with said girlfriend more than you already have”.

“If everything you have told me about Lexa is true then this level of flirting is nothing in front of her own. So maybe you should worry about the other way around”.

Lexa laughed again, collected and polite. “How about no flirting for the time being?”

Bellamy leaned back against his sister’s bend knees, offering his side-smirk at Clarke and then cracking his head to the side to look over them. “Raven is coming, Clarke, if you cannot handle me, are you sure, you’re going to survive her?”

She groaned, hanging her head and she honestly missed her old friends, Monty and Jasper and their polite shy approach to everyone. To her surprise though, it was not Raven who collapsed on the grass next to them but an older woman with dirt blonde hair and a jawline sharper than Lexa’s. From the faces around, no one recognized her but she seemed completely at ease sitting close to them, sharp brown eyes snapping carefully over them and then around the place.

The woman spoke in a language Clarke swore she had never heard before in her life and she was shocked when Lexa huffed quietly and answered right back, the words cutting and smooth on her tongue, wrapped with a different accent. The blonde eyed Lexa with a judgmental look and shifted lightly, her dark green coat falling open to show the shape of a bulletproof vest and a holstered gun hanging on her side, a lot like Clarke’s own weapon.

“Jesus, Anya, you are scaring the shit out of my friends”, Raven’s voice bombed the place behind them and the mechanic stepped into view the next second, eyeing the unfamiliar woman sitting next to Lexa. Raven’s own eyes scanned Lexa and her arm around Clarke’s waist and a smirked played on her lips, making a groan start to form inside the blonde’s chest. “You are Lexa, right?”

Lexa nodded but there was something different in her green eyes this time, her arm around Clarke having tightened its hold. She kept looking at Anya next to her and meeting her judgmental look with her own hardened one. Clarke hesitated slightly, looking up at her friend and shaking her head at her, watching something giving away in Raven’s eyes as she looked at her and then at Lexa and then at the rest of their friends that watched every interaction with confused eyes. Her gut tightened.

“Well, I’m Raven”, her friend cleared her throat, meeting Lexa’s eyes. Clarke thought she saw her shifting under the green orbs and she knew Raven’s brain was spinning with the thought of standing in front of the Commander, her own leader _._ “Anya, do you care to introduce yourself or are you going to sit like you gulped down a stick?”

Anya glared at Raven but she had a barely visible smile in the corner of her mouth and she cleared her throat, looking at all of them and settling on Clarke. “I’m Anya”, she offered a hand to her and she took it, shocked by the strength she found in the woman’s grip. “I live with Lexa and Lincoln in the courthouse and I met Raven in her motorcycle shop a few days ago”.

“Anya has a beautiful green Ducati”, Raven sighed as she slowly lowered herself on the grass in the small space between Clarke and Octavia. Clarke leaned forward to help her stretch her leg out in front of her and softly massaged the locked muscle, taking in her friend’s sigh as the knots loosened with a few presses of her hand. “Apparently people _talk_ about my shop, can you guys believe that?”

“Well, you are a good mechanic”, Anya said mindlessly, her eyes still looking around. “My motorcycle hasn’t purred like this for a while”.

Raven brightened at the quiet words and looked around her friends rapidly nodding her head with a blissful grin. Clarke laughed at her, falling into the teasing that rose from the Blake siblings, and nearly missed the way Anya leaned closer to Lexa and whispered fast unknown words to her ear. A shadow fell over Lexa’s face and then Clarke felt a hand on her thigh calling her attention. Lexa had an apologetic look in her eyes and Clarke didn’t like it. She shifted on her spot.

“Clarke, I need to go”.

“Everything alright?” she asked, looking from Lexa to Anya.

The green eyed brunette nodded, offering a small smile. “Yes, I just…”

“It’s fine. I will see you soon?” Clarke cut Lexa’s explanation. Something tightened in her chest because she _knew_. The way Anya talked to her as if she was a soldier giving a serious report to their chief, the way Lexa seemed to know _exactly_ who Raven was and from where Anya knew her from, the fact that she was living in the courthouse, the most secured rebel base in Washington.

It all fell in place and Clarke was sure Lexa was the Commander and she had been ignoring the hints for weeks now but here, in public and right before the beginning of a serious general meeting, she was sure of it. The thing she wasn’t sure of was what the hell she was going to do now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, I was planning on letting some time pass before updating again but stuff happened and I felt the need to say something.
> 
> So you have all probably seen what is going on in the 100 fandom and I have three things to say. The first is that I won't pretend to know Bob or Eliza, they are some honest to God strangers to me and I don't give three shits about what they do and what they don't. My only comment is that my babies Clarke and Bellamy have nothing to do with them on any kind of level.
> 
> BUT do not and I repeat DO NOT send any kinds of threats or bullshit to these two actros or I swear to God I will hunt you down. They are still people -seemingly having done some fucked up things- but the threats I have seen going around need to stop this second. Don't talk shit to them, do not threaten them, do not curse them, nothing, silence, I do not care, just don't be assholes. Get this wrong urge of your need to do something and twist it right around and support the victim with your kind and good goddamned nature.
> 
> The second thing is that we have a woman coming forward and talking about the abuse she went through. You support this woman. All of you. If you don't, I will pull the strings in the universe so karma gets you.
> 
> The third thing is that this is a safe place, my friends. I read the woman's story and my heart nearly fucking fell out of my chest. Anyone that has gone through something similar and was triggered by it, I am already so very protective of you and I am here for you if you want to talk, my friends.
> 
> Back to the story. Politics. Some of them. It was an actual conversation I had with someone before a general meeting in my college and I needed the commander to be seen with the people around. Be kind if you voice anydisagreements. I will be happy to discuss them. Also, I may be editing some parts of this chapter later. Try to guess what is Lexa's prefered political system it is going to be fun.
> 
> Clarke's friends are assholes and I love them.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings; starvation, police brutality, violence, industrial accident, loss of a parent, a very brief mention of a terrorist attack

Clarke wasn’t surprised that everything became so clear when she first saw Lexa in the middle of the people in the general meeting, in the middle of the very core and power of everything happening. It wasn’t as if soldiers of the rebel army came up to Lexa to salute her or bow to her or something. It was the little things; the way Lexa’s eyes scanned everything and anything, not holding still like the rest of her body, the way she took in the faces and the people and the visible and invisible weapons.

It was the ways she didn’t crack a smile at the sight of children running around and opted to watch them as if she waited for one of them to show something troubling and that would need to be fixed. Lexa had walked among the gathering people like they were nothing worth sparing a glance for and, at the same time, like they were the most important thing existing in that moment and that she needed to take them in as best as she could in seconds so she could become one with them.

It didn’t help the way Anya had fallen into step next to Lexa, her face unknown but the sight of her next to the younger woman looking so very right, the two of them clicked together like pieces of a puzzle. The older woman had been talking to Lexa the moment they walked away together, her sharp voice seeming to be heard only by Lexa. And Lexa… Lexa had never looked like a rebel before, but in that moment, she looked like a damn superior soldier and a military chief, like a commander of a vast army and a collapsed society.

Clarke was sure she had been the only one able to say so. To anyone else, Lexa had not looked like every other person walking around the blocked street to meet their friends and family, to find a place to sit for the general meeting, to find someone to tell them something important. There had been uncountable people moving around Lexa and Anya and still, to Clarke’s eyes, the image in front of her was so odd that she felt numb and tired and why couldn’t something good in her life come easily?

She knew Lexa three weeks, three exciting long weeks, full of laughter and smiles and jokes and damn good kissing. The brunette was someone special, someone who preferred to be outside more than in an apartment or base, who walked around with no gun strapped on her hip, who thrived to be between the people, in the meal lines and the busy streets and the waiting room of the hospital. Lexa’s openness and calm nature took Clarke’s breath away every single time, it made her heart beat too fast in her heavy chest. For the very first moment, Lexa had felt familiar but, at the same time, she proved to be someone so completely new and beautifully strange and Clarke was… Clarke was damn sure she falling in love way too soon for it to be smart.

“Clarke?”

 _Great_ , Clarke didn’t want to talk to her mother, not when her head was so heavy and confused with so many thoughts. Then again, she hadn’t been fair with Abby and she knew her mother didn’t deserve the grunt forming in the back of Clarke’s tongue and was ready to come out as her only answer.

She swallowed it down and looked up from the break room’s coffee table. “Hey”.

“You look tired”, Abby said in her usual smooth voice, walking to the selves holding the cups, humming pleasantly at the sight of coffee already being made.

Clarke leaned back on her chair and looked at her mother approaching and taking a seat next to her, looking like she was afraid Clarke would be spooked and would run away. It was a possibility. “My shift started at five”.

“No breakfast then?”

She clenched her jaw. If she’d been talking with her mother, Abby would know that Lincoln came from the security room to find her every morning, make her eat bread and honey and whatever fruit the meal stand outside the hospital provided that day.

“I’ve had some. You?”

“I got an orange and an apple on my way”.

It was awkward and Clarke wanted it to stop. She wanted her old mother back, the mother before college and the demonstrations and the riots and the war. Abby had been a good mother from as much as Clarke remembered from her fading memories of her childhood years. Abby had changed after Jake’s accident but she had managed to stand by Clarke’s side as best as she could despite her daughter closing herself off.

No, their breakout came _years_ after the industrial accident that killed Jake. It came with the rough debates about medical or art school, came with the groups of fascists taking the streets of the cities and Clarke’s boiling rage for the way the whole world seemed to work. It came with Abby trying to protect Clarke, trying to keep her away from the glorious demonstrations answering to the violence and the injustice, riots of people who called for Clarke to be a part of them.

Because she had known violence the moment Raven lost a leg to a terrorist attack in the mall and had her leg falling off her body as if it had been stuck there with weak glue. Clarke had known injustice when her father lost his life by a machine that should have been replaced a long while ago and everyone put the blame on _bad luck_ , filing away her father as a number of one more working accident happening.

Clarke knew she had closed herself off, away from her mother, away from friends, away from the world. She couldn’t handle the ugliness of everything. She couldn’t handle the classes in school talking about democracy because where the hell was democracy for the homeless man sleeping in the school’s parking lot? Where the hell was equality when she reached for her girlfriend’s hand in public? She couldn’t handle looking at her country’s own flag because god fucking damn her flag had been right there in a very _bad_ side of history, their flag was placed in every military base across Europe, their flag was right there on the aircraft that bombed and bombed and kept on bombing. Clarke was sick of it and why was she the only one seeing the problem?

But those demonstrations had breathed out clear oxygen to the weak flame of life barely burning inside her anymore. It was as if the universe showed her she wasn’t alone in this damn desperation she was feeling all the time, as if she wasn’t the only one raged and wounded by the rotting reality that gripped at her throat every time she walked on the street and saw only the racism, the exploitation, the oppression of everyone that wasn’t a white old man with money to feed half the state if they chose to. It wasn’t a reality or a world Clarke wanted to keep living in and in the middle of the people shouting with their fists raised… she felt her hope bloom.

Raven was the first to come with her to a demonstration, the way the people circled around them, the way their voices came together and shouted about their rights and their want for change, hooking them both. No one gave Raven and her leg a pitying look. No one eyed the pain in Clarke’s eyes with questions and wariness. Instead, the people saw their agony, physical and mental, and they _took it_ with them, they used their pain to fuel their anger and their fight and strength, they used it to keep _going_.

Octavia and Bellamy came to a general meeting with them then. Never left after it.

It was as if the movement healed something in Clarke, the heavy loneliness, a weight for the unknown future and the horrible past. She was in the middle of everything and she was demanding something better for herself and her friends and the pained people around her. She felt as if she was belonging somewhere for the first time in her life, between the crowd of unknown people, who would drag her away from the burning tear gas and would wrap themselves around her and her friends when the police forces stroke. Unknown shaky hands spread white Maalox on her teary eyes, unfamiliar fingers grasped at her clothes to keep her running, unknown eyes checked with worry to see if they needed any aid.

It took a few months of conversation with people in the general meetings for Clarke to become a part of it. She started to be the one pulling heaving people away from the gas, away from the danger of a Taser, giving out Maalox and water from a huge back pack hanging on her shoulder. Clarke was one of the groups that had saved her life more times than she could remember. She was calming down people from panic attacks in the middle of the road, her ears ringing because of the sonic weapons, the world spinning dangerously around them, settling fear and more rage in their gut as they regrouped a few blocks away, as they gritted their teeth and exchanged looks with puffy red eyes and walked back out in the street, not daring to back down.

She was finding her place there but Abby Griffin just… didn’t understand. Her mother was the top surgeon of the central hospital in the city, she had a secured job and a house just outside the city on a beautiful hill, a good income, her friends and a good therapist. She was dealing with everything as best as she could. Abby had a good life and she could picture the same for her daughter, the young, brilliant and beautiful daughter Abby was sure she could finish medical school in six years with damn good grades, if she wanted to. And it bothered her; why Clarke just _wouldn’t want_ that, why would she think to go to an art school when an artist’s future wasn’t secured or steady. Her daughter could be a brilliant doctor first, she could make art after she’d find a steady job and settle down.

But no, Clarke was closed off and barely keeping her grades up in school and she’d have an emotionless mask on her face as she watched the news, her body locked tight and her eyes narrowed and flashing dangerously. Clarke would come home late in a school night, looking emptier than the time she left, and smelling like tequila or beer or cigarettes but she’d grunt out a reply to her concern comments and wake up on time in the morning looking more like a shell of a person rather a seventeen year old student. Abby would watch her daughter from the kitchen as she listened to the news with an anxious look in her eyes and her voice cracking and looking so tired by everything happening in the world and she couldn’t understand that this was how it had always been, politics and a mess and the greed of the human nature.

 _“They are talking about war”.  
“Hmm? Who is talking about war?”  
“Our government. They are talking about war with Russia and maybe Germany”.  
“Clarke, there hasn’t been a time when we _don’t _talk about war with Russia”.  
“It’s different this time. They are talking about nuclear weapons”.  
“It is just a show off. Russia also has nuclear weapons; there is no way we will go to war with them when we don’t know who will survive it”.  
“Jesus, mom, it is really not okay for us to have this kind of conversations”.  
“What do you mean?”  
“Why don’t you get it?”_

It hadn’t taken long for Clarke to come home drenched with sweat, her face smeared with dry white liquid, her blue eyes blown wide and red with tears, smelling like tear gas and gasoline, her body trembling with adrenaline and exhaustion, at times even with pain because of a baton’s blows. Abby hadn’t felt more horrified than the first time she caught sight of Clarke returning like this, a limp in her steps, a long bruising line on one of her arms, another one on her lower back and dry blood on the front of her shirt by a wounded nose. She had tried to get Clarke to stop, her daughter’s eyes sparkling with emotion for the first time in years but it was all _wrong_ and _dangerous_ and Abby had been horrified.

It was worse when Clarke got in college, her phone turned off most of the time, the demonstrations becoming more violent as the years passed until Clarke’s last year of medical school when the military bombed down a hospital somewhere in the Middle East as a reply to a bombing of one of NATO’s bases there. Abby had been trying to reach Clarke for a week straight, her work being the only thing holding her back from getting a plane to Clarke’s college to find out if she was alright. She didn’t think she’d ever forget the fight they had had when Clarke, finally, _finally_ , called back.

Clarke had gotten her college degree in the middle of a week full of demonstrations and the university had been under conquest by the students as a protest against the ongoing fascists’ rallies about everything and anything, against the _praise_ they were getting by the news in the TV. Clarke had told Abby she didn’t need to go, she hadn’t had the time for any kind of celebration, too busy with everything. Raven had been the one to send Abby a quick video of Clarke, sweat on her forehead, climbing on a stage dressed in ripped jeans and a white shirt, yellow, red and black paint covering her daughter’s cheek and fingers and her movements sharp and rushed as she got her diploma and shook a professor’s hand, the crowd of students breaking out in loud cheers of her daughter’s name, the shaky video cutting with Raven’s loud shout to someone about getting Clarke right back to writing those banners and placards.

Two months later, when Raven got her own degree in physics, they flew together back in Washington DC, immediately starting to look for apartments and jobs and a new place back into their hometown. Abby didn’t expect her daughter to come back, not after their relationship the last couple of years but she was glad to have Clarke close again. Her daughter had grown when she was in college, her blue eyes filled with life all over again, her mouth quirking up in easy smirks and smiles more and more often. She looked like someone else but at the same time, she was exactly the same person or a more guarding version of her old self; Clarke was still not opening up, she was quick to duck out of conversations with practiced ways, her loneliness wrapped in the cloak of constant work, first in the national museum for a few months and then in Abby’s hospital. Her tries to get through to her daughter were proven useless, Clarke’s walls had been a lot more thickened and steadier than before and not much later, Abby just let her be when Clarke got her own place somewhere downtown.

When war was declared by the people’s side, Abby was left unsteady, like the floor had been pulled under her feet and it had been very long days when the riots had turned into active battles. She had never guessed the people’s anger had been that much, that the people’s rage had reached its limit when piles of bodies were left on the roads by the army’s machine guns. She had expected the riots to keep going, to keep becoming more and more violent and then… then there weren’t talking about a riot, they were talking about a _civil war_ _happening_ and within a week, it felt like the sky had collapsed completely. Abby’s friends were the first to fly out of the country, their families with them, her neighbors and coworkers were next and the hospital was suddenly left understaffed and Abby’s work had been the one constant thing in her life and she desperately grasped onto it, spending most of her nights in her office rather than her house in a completely abandoned part of the city.

She wasn’t surprised when Clarke was in the middle of everything, her eyes wide and her voice strong as she placed her faith on the raging people, as she rushed to aid, to heal, to talk to people, easy smirks turned into soft gentle smiles, even when Abby watched the hunger overtaking her daughter’s body, sucking some of the life out of her cheeks and shoulders and waist, but it never sucked out the spark in her sky blue eyes. Raven and Octavia and Bellamy made various appearances in the hospital, her daughter’s childhood friends standing stronger than she remembered them, their feet steady and fast, their eyes sharpened with confidence and _life_ and passion. She was glad Clarke wasn’t alone in this. She was glad her friends were her pillars, even if it seemed like Clarke was their foundation most of the time.

Now, in the hospital’s break room, Abby was seeing the emptiness appearing in her daughter’s eyes again and she felt her chest clenching at the sight, at the knowledge she couldn’t do anything about it. She had spotted her daughter walking around the hospital looking brighter than usual but she knew little to nothing about Clarke’s life to know what had changed. It was difficult, being a stranger with your family.

“Are you okay, sweetie?” Abby cringed at her own self. She hadn’t called Clarke that ever since she had been a little girl and Clarke seemed to think the same, her familiar blue eyes sending a wary look at her mother.

“I’m fine”, she cleared her throat, sitting up on her chair and knocking her fingers on the surface on the table. “Can you get me a cup as well, please?”

Clarke pulled a face with the first long sip and quietly looked inside her coffee as if it could show her the future. The deep lines of worry and thought on her face weren’t a new sight. It made Abby want to run a hand over them, smooth them out softly.

“Hey”, Abby was talking before she realized she was doing so and Clarke grunted in acknowledgement but didn’t lift her eyes from the coffee. “What is it?”

Maybe it was the odd softness of her tone, maybe it was Clarke’s need to talk to someone. Either way, the blue eyes rose to her own and Abby let herself feel the love she held for his girl that looked so much like Jake, inside and out.

“How do you decide to trust someone you practically don’t know but feel like they are the best thing that has happened to you?”

Abby leaned back and sighed because Clarke sounded _so_ _old_ in that moment, as if infinitive lives had passed by her. “Find out if they feel the same before you decide”.

Clarke huffed quietly, tilting her head back. “It’s not that easy. I don’t know them”.

“Trust is not an easy thing, Clarke. Define the best thing to happen to you and find out if she can be this thing or something even more and decide then”.

“I never said anything about a she”.

Abby chuckled and shot her a side-look. She hadn’t missed the way her daughter had walked straight onto a wall a few weeks ago by catching a glimpse of the brunette woman Clarke had saved from a bullet. “Talk to her. She might surprise you”.

Clarke sighed, drained and exhausted but, at least, the spark was back in her bright blue eyes. “She always fucking does, mom”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *gasps* Clarke was a woke kid, who would have guessed


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning in the notes, guys, a comrade of mine passed away. It was a difficult day and I needed to talk about it a bit.

“Hey”, Clarke was surprised to find Lexa in her usual spot outside the entrance of the hospital, gorgeously leaning against a car, long legs crossed at her ankles, hands on the pockets of her coat. She was in boots and tight jeans and another hoodie, a scarf around her neck, its red color standing out against the total black outfit. They met there every three days, when Clarke’s shifts started way too early in the morning and ended in the afternoon, leaving her aching for a bed and a nap.

“Hey”, Lexa smiled softly, collected, looking like she holding back. It hadn’t been long since she had left with Anya in the general meeting and never came back after that. She looked like she knew, the apology coming sooner than Clarke expected. “Sorry about the way I left the other day”.

Clarke sighed and softened despite her better judgement and she couldn’t help but close the distance between them and press a kiss on Lexa’s mouth, cuddling close to the warmth radiating from her. Lexa did seem to mind the public affection from her part, all but melting against Clarke, hands coming to settle on the blonde’s hips. The weather had gotten impossibly colder the last couple of days, the snow having covered the higher parts of the mountains and hills. Thick clouds promised heavy rain and a long storm soon enough.

Lexa pulled back with a soft inhale, green eyes dazed and wide and open and Clarke felt her gut tightening lightly again both for blissful happiness and devastating worry. She cursed the universe as Lexa picked up on it and lifted a bare hand to her face, caressing her cheek. “What is it?”

It was the same question her mother had asked her and Clarke groaned because between thinking about Lexa, talking to her mother and working for so many hours, she wished she’d a few breaks from each thing thrown at her. “We need to talk”.

Lexa’s throat caught in her throat and Clarke frowned at the suddenness of it, her brain snapping to some medical explanation for shortness of breath but Lexa’s eyes rolled quietly and she huffed, not looking like she was in pain or something. “This is a phrase that should be banned from any kind of conversation”.

Clarke pulled back, confused and amused. She chuckled. “What?”

“ _We need to talk_ ”, Lexa repeated and shook her head. “Way to cause way too much anxiety to someone, Clarke”.

She laughed, pulling back to punch at Lexa’s shoulder, shaking her head at the clear ridiculousness this woman was at times. “It’s… It’s not going to be that bad. But we need to be in, huh, a _safe_ place”.

At her words, Lexa seemed to completely sober up, the smirk falling from her face as her jaw clenched painfully tight. Green eyes snapped around the place as if Lexa was looking for someone before they settled back down at Clarke who had pulled back at the feeling of the woman’s body tensing way too much and way too quickly.

“Some base?” Lexa cleared her throat, looking around again.

It would be smart but then again, the bases were crowded with people she didn’t think either of them would be calm enough to have this conversation with people around. “My apartment?”

Lexa breathed out and shifted and tensed and didn’t look comfortable at the words. Clarke sighed as well, trying to think of anywhere else they could talk about this and coming up empty. “Are you going to kill me?”

Clarke frowned and her eyes snapped up because the words were light but Lexa’s eyes were dark and untrusting and Clarke sighed because she could not have Lexa looking at her like that. Still she felt a laugh bubble up in her chest and she shook her head, lifted her fingers to trail down the beautiful curve of Lexa’s clenched jaw.

“I’m not going to kill you”.

Lexa cleared her throat and the tension didn’t leave her body. “Do you promise?”

Clarke chuckled and nodded her head, still caressing Lexa’s skin. “I promise”.

Lexa sighed. “Alright then… It was about time you invited me to your apartment anyway, considering your friends call me your _girlfriend_ ”.

Clarke laughed at that, leaning back in to kiss her and in that moment, she didn’t give a damn she was the Commander of the revolution in the United States of America.

\---

Lexa looked impossibly small as she sat in the edge of her bed, her hands wrapped around a warm cup of tea, scarf and coat and boots taken off. She politely eyed the drawings above Clarke’s desk but didn’t approach to study them better and Clarke felt a pang of sympathy because she looked ready to break. She had stared at Clarke closely as she had taken off her coat and then the holster with her gun wrapping around her back and shoulders and Clarke thought she heard her breathe out when Clarke locked the gun away from sight.

These were no trusting times and Lexa was an awfully trusting person with her.

Now, they were sitting on Clarke’s bed, silent in the small one room flat. Clarke let Lexa take in her place, the tiny kitchen, the desk and the piles of books on the floor and her few shelves, the mess of clothes in a tiny drawer, the bed that blocked half of the balcony’s glass doors which were covered with a thick light blue curtain.

“It’s small”, Clarke tried to say, glad to see that her voice broke whatever tension had settled between them. Lexa seemed to visibly relax at the words but she didn’t move an inch, didn’t uncurl her shoulders.

“It’s very… you”.

Clarke eyed her apartment and didn’t know if she should be complemented or insulted. “…How?”

A smile tugged at the corner of Lexa’s mouth and she finally moved bringing the tea to her lips and took a sip of the hot liquid, trusting there wasn’t any drug on it. “It’s small but it has a lot of personality”.

Clarke gapped at her. “You are calling me small?”

“Just a bit, Clarke”, Lexa smiled at her, _finally_ , turning to look at her.

Clarke chuckled, taking a sip of her own tea. She cleared her throat and decided that as long as she waited it’d get more and more difficult to get the words out. “I wanted to talk about you and the Coalition”.

Just as she expected, Lexa froze on her seat on the bed, her eyes lowering to the tea in her hold and her eyebrows pulling together. Clarke didn’t expect a collected answer so soon though. “How did you know?”

It seemed like a confirmation but at the same time it didn’t. “I guessed from the time in the hospital with Indra and everyone guarding you. You fit every rumor there is of the Commander so… And then two days ago, in the general meeting with Anya, you just… It made sense”.

“You could have thought I was just a chief”.

“Raven is part of the Coalition, Lexa, and when she is excited she is not very careful. Anya’s Ducati and her… _membership_ are no secret for me. And despite her being very, very scary, she kind of submitted to you. Like Indra and Gustus and Raven and your armed men in the hospital”.

Lexa breathed out and Clarke was shocked to find some kind of mask _melting away_ from her face, the green eyes narrowing slightly _–naturally–_ and an indescribable exhaustion settled on Lexa’s whole body, making it curl upwards both tensed and relaxed. Lexa looked at her as if she was someone else, the charming brunette turned into a confident and ligtly harder woman. Clarke tensed on her own seat, watching the transformation with a parted mouth and she was slammed with the image of _Lexa_ , the whole image of her, no part of it being hidden away.

Clarke had to find that psychology book in those piles of medical textbooks because there was no explanation of this woman’s ability to turn off and on parts of herself with this much ease.

The cheery, charming, flirting Lexa was completely gone and Clarke wondered if she had ever known Lexa in the first place, if the feelings in her gut where even real. The woman in front of her had a guarding wall raised up around her and her green eyes had lost some of their sparkling light under a calculating smart look and an _exhaustion_ once hidden but now covered every inch of her face.

“What the hell?” she heard herself mumbled and felt her throat tightening because she was sitting in front of some stranger and she needed to move away to breathe. Her feet carried her numbingly across the small apartment and she settled her cup on the counter, daring to look back at Lexa. The stranger was still there and Clarke shuddered on her feet, her heart cracking in her chest as icy pain wrapped around it.

“Clarke…” At least the voice was right and like she remembered; soft and quiet and curling around her name just right, clicking on the letters gently.

“How the fuck did you do that?”

“Did what?” The confusion sounded right as well. She _needed_ to find that book but she doubted it’d give her any answer.

She laughed, a bit deliriously and, dear god, she was so tired. “Your whole face changed”.

“This _is_ my face, Clarke”.

“Spare me the smartass comments for the time being, Lexa”, Clarke snapped, old familiar anger licking up inside her throat. It felt as if nothing in this world was right again and she thought the world was changing and she hoped in that and she hadn’t felt like this ever since she was in high school and sitting in her mother’s couch with the TV one, listening to the rotten ugliness of the system in the sugarcoating news.

“Look at me. Clarke”.

Clarke shuddered because Lexa’s voice had changed as well, a sharp tone wrapping around the edges and Clarke quickly realized it was this strange accent she had never spotted before, because Lexa had always been slow when she talked, as if she tried the words in her head before saying them.

She turned. Lexa had set her cup on the floor and she was standing, her face tight and missing its usual openness but it was worried and her eyebrows were frowned and her lips turned downwards lightly, tired lines over her face. Clarke gritted her teeth and sighed, because she could see it now, she could see this woman being a commander of a whole nation and being a loving partner. And apparently Lexa was both of these things but she had closed off a part of her to Clarke and it was now so very _strange_ to look at her like this; wrapped in an aura of authority and sharpness and tough confidence.

“I know it wasn’t fair keeping this from you for so long”. Lexa took a small step forwards, hesitating, waiting for any sign to pull back again and provide some space to her. “But it is not something I can speak of openly”.

“It’s been nearly a month, Lexa. We have been _together_ for nearly a month and you didn’t think it was something I should know about”.

“I would not be with you if I wasn’t sure you would be safe, Clarke”.

“Jesus, it’s not just…” Clarke shook her head. “You are probably the most threatened and threatening person that exists, Lexa”.

Lexa looked as if Clarke had slapped her, green eyes widening and the words dying in the throat, a chocked gasp being the only thing able to pass her parted lips. She was lost and looked at Clarke for something to hang on, not entirely understanding the weight of the blonde’s words but still feeling their heaviness crushing her shoulders.

“They are _looking_ for you. Everyone is fucking looking for you, Lexa”, Clarke’s voice cracked and turned into a heavy whisper, afraid someone would listen to her words and bust through her thin door to arrest the woman in front of her. “The military, the fucking Reapers, I… You are so _open_. You are…”

“Clarke”, Lexa shook her head, stepping even closer. She wanted to reach out, caress the blonde woman’s face and smooth away the deep lines that had settled between her eyebrows. “I’m always protected. I’m always careful, I know the risks and I’m not doing something stupid”.

“Yes, yes, you are”, Clarke shook her head as well, turning and shutting her eyes because her heart was beating out of fucking control and why, _why,_ did she let herself care so much about this woman since she _knew_. “You are the _commander_ of the revolution and you are going out in the streets every day, with me, someone you know nothing about and every day, you are surrounding by…”

“Clarke, stop, hey”, Lexa was in front of her again and she wasn’t a stranger anymore and Clarke was falling in love with the commander of a revolutionary civil war. She was so fucked at the moment. The warm hand that reached up to cup at her jaw didn’t help. The second firmer hand that curled around her chin and lifted her head up didn’t help either. At all. The passion in the green eyes was a whole other conversation. “I’m not having this conversation again, with you of all people so let me make some things very clear. I’m not shutting myself out of life just because I am who I am”.

Lexa’s voice was sure and firm and her eyes were cold but they still looked trusting and familiar. “I’m not about to sacrifice a part of my life so everyone else gets some commander that is full business. I have had these discussions with the Council and the Ambassadors and I _tried_ to be the commander and nothing else but I couldn’t. It wasn’t logical to lead a revolution and not be an active part of it, not live it”.

Clarke shook her head as best as the hand still holding her chin let her. “You are the most important person in this, you lead this _war_ , _it is war,_ Lexa, you are the–“

“No, I am not”, Lexa sighed heavily, looking so very tired. “I was in the sideline for so long. I was watching and commanding and it was as if I was playing chess with the enemy but it held no beauty, no passion, nothing. It was a job and I don’t want the revolution to be my job. I want to be in the middle of it and I tried, Clarke. I tried and it wasn’t enough. I am damn good at being the commander but I am even better at it when I am between the people, when I am in the general meetings and live with the rebels in the bases and the buildings under conquest. This is where I can be a better commander and be _whole_ as a damn person”.

Clarke shook her head again, feeling her knees weakening slightly at the light in the green eyes and the beauty of it. Lexa shook her head right back. “I won’t deny I have growing feelings for you. I don’t want to step back from this, because I want you. I want to keep being the commander and I know the dangers. I will also understand if you are not okay with being with someone in my position”.

Clarke nodded slowly. And damn this woman. _Damn_ this _fucking woman._

Lexa took in a deep breath and let go of her chin softly, shaky fingers rising to push back her own hair. She bit her lip and yes, this was all of Lexa. Clarke was only now seeing the steeled confidence Lexa had hidden from her, the aura of authority and pure power and the way all of it fed onto the softness Lexa had in her soul. Clarke was awed she had crossed paths with this woman.

“You are just seducing me right now”, Clarke chocked out and Lexa paused and laughed and this was _all_ of Lexa. Clarke leaned in, holding Lexa’s head steady with both of her hands and kissed her, deeply and slowly and pouring everything she wanted to say but couldn’t in this kiss. Clarke was never good with putting her feelings in the open with words but she was damn good expressing herself with her hands and so she did; keeping Lexa still in front of her and using her fingertips and palms to caress her face and hair and neck as she kissed her hard and deep and wanting.

She was pleased when Lexa had to rip herself from her and gulp down shaky breaths, eyes completely dark and wide. “You kiss me like this and I’m the one seducing you?” she could barely talk and Clarke nodded because she didn’t think there was something that could top that speech.

“Take me to bed so we can both continue the seducing”.

“That was probably the worst pick up line I have ever heard”.

“Lexa”.

“Yeah?”

“Just take me to bed, please”.

“With pleasure”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *coughs* Happy chapter because it was a very difficult day. A good guy and comrade passed away today and he was a part of an enviromental movement here in my town and well, it was tough to find out. He was a victim of the police brutality about a month ago in a protest and he was still recovering from the physical trauma, getting better but here we are I guess. Seems like we are not that far away from Minneapolis.
> 
> We will honor him with our fights against this fucked up system that leaves dead young people on its damned way. Capitalism is fucking cruel, you guys. Keep on with your demostrations from wherever you are reading this story, people, some change needs to come at some point.
> 
> Back to this, Lexa is a bit out of character but she's trying to be a very active part of this revolution. Clarke's little overreaction is because she's exhausted by work and reality, don't judge her too much, please.
> 
> Tell me your thoughts, guys. One more reminder that the plot here is going to get darker later on. Excuse any mistakes, English is not my first language.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings; violence, blood and injury, graphic depiction of torture, terrorism, police brutality

“So the rumors are true?”

“Which ones?”

“You used to work for a lumber industry?”

Lexa groaned in her pillow, burring herself even deeper in the cocoon of blankets. It was too cold inside Clarke’s room and they were both shivering, pressed together to keep warm. The room was bathed in the soft light of five candles that sat on the tiny table next to Clarke’s bed, the flames flickering softly in the still air.

“I did”.

“You don’t sound pleased”.

“I am not. The working conditions were hell and our factory came to be the first conquest that happened when the riots broke out”.

Clarke turned slowly, lying even more onto her stomach, trying not to purr as her hand dragged up and down her back. “Were you the reason of that?”

“Possibly”, Lexa laughed and Clarke smiled in her pillow, not opening her eyes. “I would never shut up about a general meeting”.

“You’re such a communist”.

“I’m not”.

“ _Shit_. The Commander of the Coalition is not a communist. How are you dealing with all of them trying to get their way?”

“They are not that bad”.

“Still, I imagine everyone in the council wants their way”.

“Yes, but I am there to keep them in check”.

“That’s hot”.

“I wish it was because I am fucking freezing”.

“If you guys figure out the heating situation, please, be a good girlfriend and enforce it in this apartment building first”.

Lexa scoffed. “Sorry, Clarke, there are other buildings that come first”.

“Like?”

“I don’t know. The hospital”.

“Yeah, go ahead and make me sound like a selfish asshole”.

Lexa laughed again, her fingers stopping their caress and her hand falling numb on her back, rubbing softly at the thick fabric of her hoodie. Clarke yawned into her pillow, fighting off sleep.

“I’m sorry for coming hard at you before”.

“I thought it showed how much I liked the way you came, Clarke”.

“Jesus, don’t you ever stop?” Clarke hiccupped as she laughed, dragging Lexa along in the fit of laugher and they suddenly felt way warmer than before. They settled on the blankets feeling perfectly at ease with each other, perfectly happy to just be and share their space and silence.

“I’m sorry though”.

“I’m also sorry. I should have said something”.

“I would have run away if you had”.

“…even if I had made the same speech?”

“I don’t know. _Would_ you have made the same speech?”

“I don’t know. Probably not”.

“Is it weird that I feel like I’ve known you forever?”

“No. I feel the same”.

“Maybe we are soulmates”.

“That’s… that’s a rather idealistic way of thinking, Clarke”.

Clarke pushed up, fed up. “And you keep _claiming_ you are not a communist!”

“Just because I prefer materialism doesn’t mean I’m a communist”.

“What are you then?”

“You wanted to guess!”

“Babe! I don’t want to guess anymore”.

They both froze at the nickname and they looked at each other with lifted eyebrows and then laughed again, feeling way younger than they actually were. Lexa sighed against the pillow reaching a hand behind her to pull the hood of her given hoodie over her head. Everything around her smelled like Clarke and Lexa wished she wouldn’t have to move for many, many hours.

“We can discuss it tomorrow over breakfast”.

“I’m not having a political talk with you before work”.

“Why?”

“Because you are who you are and because it’d be way too early”

“Over dinner then”.

Clarke yawned, her eyes closing. “Deal”.

\---

“So, do you care to like fill me in about you and Lexa?”

“Are you _seriously_ asking me about my love life when you are bleeding, Octavia?”

“How Raven of me, I know, I know, but, you know, I’m doped up with painkillers and considering I am your best friend and stuff, practically family, you know, I’d want to know how things are going–“

Clarke’s growl was dangerous enough to shut up the brunette. The youngest Blake was lying on the dirty floor, head lolled back and her nose looking like it was broken. A slash wound travelled down her left ribcage in a thin deep line spitting out thick warm blood. Clarke’s bare hands were already soaked, her entire body leaning over Octavia’s to press down on the wound, Jackson and a couple of more nurses were around them, discussing in rapid words if they should try to move Octavia more than she had already been.

Octavia was as pale as the tiles underneath her, her blood forming a warm pool of red around her torso, soaking Clarke’s pants and white robe quickly. Clarke did not like the way her friend was losing blood, didn’t like the way her wet clothes and the thick mud covered every inch of Octavia. It also wasn’t helping the hospital was completely _packed_ with people, the storm forcing most of their patients to stay put for the first time in the last years.

 _The Reapers had appeared out of nowhere_ , Miller had informed them with a broken panting voice, his own clothes drenched with rain and Octavia’s blood. The guy was trembling and if Clarke wasn’t pressing down on Octavia’s wound, she would leap up and kiss him or something. He had carried Octavia through the storm without a split second thought and he’d probably saved her life and Clarke felt like she was in debt. Lincoln’s hand still hadn’t unlocked itself from the other guy’s shoulder.

“We need to clean this wound”, Niylah’s voice sounded from somewhere close to them and Clarke was nodding but didn’t dare to move her hands, practically inside Octavia’s ribcage by now, knowing they were the only thing stopping more of her blood from spilling out.

Clarke looked up at the other woman’s eyes and gritted her teeth, Niylah placing a careful hand on her shoulder and gripping. “Where is that stretcher?”

“Here, here”, another voice called out and Clarke sighed down at Octavia, meeting her pained brown eyes. The blonde sighed, arms aching and she slowly shifted on her knees, listening to her friend’s low groans of pain as she fingers moved against her wound. Octavia’s eyes rolled in the back of her head with pain as Clarke’s body shifted over hers and stood over her, bend, legs on either side.

“Jesus, Griffin, you are hot and all, but I am in a very happy relationship”.

“Focus on my hotness for now, O, because this is going to hurt like a bitch”.

As expected, Octavia gasped and cried out a chocked little sound as hands grabbed her body and lifted her on the stretcher. She groaned, softer this time, when Clarke gently straddled her on the thin mattress, the metal creaking as it snapped up with both of them on it. Jackson told her he would be taking over from her and that she should go outside with Lincoln when they were ready for her to remove her hands. Clarke could only nod, afraid that if she moved more than that her body would start to tremble uncontrollably.

She was right, as soon as they rolled into an operating room, Clarke locked eyes with a nurse and took her hands away for another pair to take their place. She was not pushed outside, not physically at least, but she knew her place and protocol and she slowly turned only to find out her body was shaking violently. Lincoln caught her just as her knees bend lightly.

It had been a long while since she last had one of her friends lying unconscious and bleeding on an operating table, since she had their blood drying on her skin. Clarke pinpointed the time back in the beginning of the movement, when they were still young and jerked in terror at the sound of sonic weapons. They had been new and inexperienced with the violence, not quick enough to duck away from a baton, not having built up the reflexes to avoid serve damage. Not that police used to hit on the people’s faces, it took them a while to grow indifferent of where they hit.

And then in college, Raven had been always careful, aware of her disability and her brilliant mind, always having a small window near her to keep herself safe from the attacks so she could help others as well. Clarke had treated many, _many_ wounds in college with her fellow medical students but not wounds of her friends, her family. It had been a while since then and their wounds had never been life threatening, they had been lucky for that.

She was glad Bellamy was there, soaking wet and shivering from the cold and his wet clothes drying on his body. He took a look at the blood covering her, paled and very slowly lowered himself on a plastic chair, eyes closed. There was an equally wet rifle balanced on the wall and Clarke wondered how the hell he got out of patrol. They’d never let anyone leave their post even if a close relative was in the hospital but she decided she didn’t need to worry about him getting in trouble with the Coalition.

Lincoln placed his big warm on her shoulder, his face grim and hallow. “Go change”.

She slowly did, her feet heavy and dragging on the tiles and trying to block out the bright lights which kept dimming as the storm roared. She really wished their backup generator would still keep going because a blackout of the building would mean that she’d have to stay the night and work. Octavia’s image lying in a growing pool of her own blood wasn’t a thought which would allow her to focus on her job. The locker room was colder than the rest of the building, the light indeed being turned off as the generator didn’t provide any power to it. Clarke’s fingers were trembling as she reaching into her robe’s pocket and pulled out her matches, turning to light up the five small candles that were scattered around the room, taking one with her.

There was no saving for her clothes or her robe and she didn’t have any strength to think otherwise, pulling them off and throwing them in a bin, slipping in the second change she always kept in her locker. She hoped her boss would let her be half an hour earlier –Kane was good; he had some understanding, even if he never seemed to approve of his staff’s connection with the revolution. He could honestly suck it.

Raven was sat next to Bellamy when she returned from the locker room, her clothes less wet than Bellamy’s, an umbrella placed on the floor next to her automatic rifle and a helmet. Clarke barely spared a glance at Anya talking to Lincoln with a hand on his upper arm as she approached her friends and found herself in Raven’s tight hold.

Raven was shaking harder than she was. “I’m going to kill them myself, Clarke, I’m telling you I will blow every last of them in pieces”.

Clarke nodded against Raven’s neck, tightening her hold. The Coalition did not hold back when it came to Reapers; anyone caught being a part of their organization was immediately shot down. In a way they were worse than the soldiers of the National Army, worse than their oppressors pulling the strings from the other side and trying to hold onto their old system and bury the revolution in blood. The Reapers could be your neighbors, your co-workers, anyone close to you. It was a force, unknown and protected by the fascist, the billionaires, the old drug dealers, the governors and the soldiers. They attacked like packs of hyenas and wild dogs, tearing at everything on their way and then running off into the shadows, taking of their hoods and becoming one with the crowds of people a second later. To some extent, the Reapers seemed to be shadows and ghosts, snapping in and out of existence to spread chaos, death.

The torture was daily; in the people’s apartments, in alleys, in basements and hidden bases. Corpses were left out in the streets, their faces unrecognizable, fatal wounds looking as if they were made by someone inhuman. Their only propose was just to terrorize, to mentally and physically break anyone they could, to send a message of cruelty and horror to the revolutionary movement.

Clarke buried her face on Raven’s neck and sobbed, hoping her friend and very close companion ever since school would catch and help her pull herself together after. It was something they had given to each other countless times before, strength when it could become too much to handle at times, when something would slightly snap under the horror of the forces they were getting from the other side of this war. She was more than glad when Raven caught her gently, naturally, rocking her back and forth and whispering quiet song lyrics and slogans of the old demonstrations, a trick they had learn from an old friend, Luna. Bellamy quietly joined them as they slide on the cold floor, Raven’s back on the wall, Clarke cuddled against her chest, Bellamy settling in front of them and lowering his head on Clarke’s shoulder, shaking as they wrapped around one another.

“I will blow them up for this, guys, I promise”.

Clarke shut her eyes, gripping at Raven’s shirt. “I will be right there with you”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you think of the Reapers?
> 
> Also I am no doctor so please excuse the way any medical action takes place, I have no damn idea how wounds and injuries and shit work.
> 
> Leave your thoughts in the comments, I have missed you, guys, talk to me again, your love boosts my self-esteem to keep writing. Have a beautuful day from wherever you are reading this from, don't forget to wear your masks and wash your hands and stuff. I love you all.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings; mention of forced rehabilitation, references to drugs

They had won. In Brooklyn, the grounds their rebel army had been losing were all at once taken back by a huge armed aid that came from New Jersey. Clarke guessed it was the reason why she hadn’t spotted Lexa waiting for her in her usual spot outside the hospital in nearly a whole week. She had a vague feeling the Commander had travelled herself to Brooklyn and it made Clarke shake with worry and frustration at the times work and Octavia didn’t keep her more than busy.

Octavia recovered fast, got onto her feet after three days, groaning and growling in pain and rage as she snapped at her patrol chief to _find those Reapers_ so she could kill them herself. It hadn’t been an unusual attack and Clarke had sighed heavily as Miller informed them Octavia’s apartment was still intact; nobody had broken in to snoop around. More had followed in their steady rate, ensuring them Reapers had not found a new way of operating that would show they had some target on Octavia.

And Brooklyn was great fucking news and there was a celebration been planned out in the street, outside the old police station, making everyone buzz with excitement despite the freezing weather. Clarke was sure the Coalition would be providing them with enough warm food and bonfires and a good mood to keep the chill away from their bodies. No alcohol or weed though, their leaders were strict on that part and if it was one thing the Coalition forced on its people was the ban of any substance that would cloud the mind for even a split second. She had been so shocked to find that drug dealers were right under the Reapers in the long list of people been searched to be locked away or executed.

So, for the first time since forever in the United States of America, any kinds of illegal drug use were dropped in shocking levels. Pharmaceutical supplies and medication were tracked down very carefully but still, there was always some leak of the drugs been sent to the black markets and away from the hospitals and the few pharmacies they were still working around the city. The industries and companies were under a tight lock down and careful surveillance by the Coalition. There were the black markets that secretly sold away meth and cocaine and even pot and already made weed cigarettes but the Coalition and most of the people had none of it, tearing the markets down as soon as they dared to be built up. Anyone caught using any kind of recreational drugs would be taken in a rehab center looking more like a prison and would be sobered up violently, a weapon thrusted in their hold the next moment and they’d be posted in the borders among the Coalition’s most trusting warriors. It was harsh but the drugs were _actually_ illegal and _difficult_ to find. Clarke always startled by the realization those were Lexa’s orders and doings. The Cartels were in an unofficial war with the Coalition as well as the National Army and it was one more reason the people pulled away completely from any drug use.

But despite the alcohol ban, those people knew how to plan a damn party as good as they knew how to plan a battle. Clarke could hear the music bombing the streets when she and Octavia and Lincoln weren’t even _close_ to the place. The sun had just set in the horizon, leaving hints of orange painting the darkening blue sky and it was _cold_ , a chilly wind blowing and making goosebumps appear on their skin. The storm had passed in a gentler way than the one it had arrived, but it seemed like it had left behind freezing temperatures and a sharp dread at the thought of returning to an icy apartment to sleep.

She at least hoped Lexa was back in fucking town so Clarke could use her for heat in the nights that were about to come and spread snow on the roads and rooftops.

“They have _hotdogs!_ ” Her thoughts were cut off by Raven’s cheering voice, their friend already waiting for them in the corner of the park so they could walk to the celebration together. Clarke was surprised to find Anya standing next to Raven, her hands buried deep in her coat’s pockets and half of her face hidden in a thick scarf. Her glaring eyes were the only thing showing and they were terrifying enough to stop any teasing jokes to grow at the back of Clarke’s throat. They had seen the woman a few more times, always around Raven, always glaring and always looking around as if she waited for a tank to appear underneath the concrete roads. She never talked much, but when she did, she let hints of a very amusing dark humor to appear and of an attitude that Clarke didn’t think it could be topped by anything.

Clarke grunted as Raven collapsed onto her rather than Octavia, who still had a slight limp and grimaced when she straightened her back or stood or sat. Octavia and Lexa would make good fucking friends if they bonded over being awful fucking patients.

“Any ketchup?”

“And fucking mustard!”

Clarke stifled a moan at the words. She’d have to thank Lexa later for that.

“Tell me there is alcohol”, Octavia groaned, despite knowing there was no way they would allow something like that.

Raven’s smirk had Clarke pausing because _there was no way._ “Hot chocolate, baby!”

“No. Are you serious?”

“Yep!”

“Is it like _hot_?”

“Burning”.

Anya walked closer and raised an eyebrow behind her scarf. “With marshmallows”.

“NO! You are shitting me!”

“I would never dream of doing such a thing, Clarke”.

Clarke didn’t care of the woman’s cutting voice; Anya’s words had earned her some of Clarke’s love and affection. She also didn’t care of the glaring brown eyes, Clarke still grinned at the older woman with all the happiness she was feeling at the time.

“Lead the fucking way!” Octavia all but cheered next to her, her friend’s eyes just as wide with bliss. Clarke was sure that if it wasn’t for the slash wound on her side, she would be hopping on the spot.

They walked among the people gathered around the small fires, laughter and music filling the air. Clarke smiled at the way they were wrapped in separated cocoons of thick clothes, hands wrapped around paper cups of steaming chocolate, smiles and bright eyes decorating their tired faces. Clarke spotted Bellamy in the crowd, a rifle on his shoulder as he stood guard, his eyes smiling as he looked around the people. A stage was set up just in front of the old police station, a banner pulled up above it, red and black letters writing; _Brooklyn shows the way! We will keep fighting!_ signed with the Coalition’s familiar infinity symbol. There was a band placed on it, electric instruments and microphones making the music sound through the whole clearing.

Anya didn’t make a stop at the food stands set around and rather walked farther down the cleared square, across the stage and to a food stand father away. Clarke felt her lips curling up at the sight of Lexa wrapped in a long thick coat, a red beanie on her head and her red scarf around her whole face. Despite the thick clothes and the way she leaned close to a lit fire right next to her, she still seemed shaken by the cold, her wide green eyes looking up at Gustus as he talked.

“I thought you were from norther up”, Clarke said as she all but crushed against her woman’s side. She was pleased to see Lexa’s eyes widen with pleasant surprise and then happiness, her gaze softening as she took in the blonde’s face.

“Freezing temperatures are the same in every state, Clarke”, Lexa mumbled under her red scarf and Clarke laughed, pressing her face against the collar of her coat. “I would hug you but I don’t want to take my hand off my pockets”

Clarke mocked a gasp and pulled back lightly. “I don’t deserve that sacrifice?”

Lexa’s eyes narrowed lightly as they always did when she smiled. She slowly moved her head up and from side to side in the most adorable manner a human being could make, her lower half of her face finally peeking out from under her scarf that settled just underneath her chin. Clarke grinned as Lexa bend down to press a quick soft kiss on her cold lips, never straightening away from the table she used to lean on.

“I missed you”, Clarke mumbled against cold lips and Lexa smiled softly, nodding.

“Me too”.

“Alright, quit being adorable, you two”, Octavia rolled her eyes as she eyed them from her spot a few steps away, her hands already wrapped around a steaming cup of hot chocolate. Lincoln had an arm around her shoulders but he wasn’t looking at them. On the other hand, both Raven and Anya stared and Clarke cleared her throat, pulling back just slightly because she was, indeed, draped all over the strict and very ruthless commander of the revolution.

Lexa offered a smile to Octavia before she ducked her chin, trying to pull her scarf back up over her mouth and nose without having to use her hands. Clarke scoffed at the adorable struggle and did it for her. “Octavia, I’m glad to see you on your feet”.

“You heard?”

“Of course, the Coalition tries not to keep the attacks a secret from the people”.

Octavia hummed, taking a sip of her chocolate and instantly melting on her spot, the conversation forgotten right away. “Jesus, this is damn good. Tell me more about the food there is”.

Anya smirked softly. “There is mostly trash; hotdogs, burgers, fries…”

“Stop right there. I swear to god, I will give my life for this commander”.

Clarke chocked on her laugh, managing to hide it behind a cough as Lexa stayed still on her spot, her eyes frozen on Gustus who looked over at the people around them. The tension was gone a second later as Raven let out a laugh and rose her cup in an unnecessary toast, “To the Coalition! That managed to provide some much needed junk food in the middle of the civil war of the United States of America! A better world is possible indeed”.

They laughed and raised their cups of hot chocolate. Clarke leaned on Lexa shooting a smile to her friends. The woman sighed against her. “You aren’t having any?”

Lexa shook her head and leaned closer to her ear. “You can have my share”.

Clarke chuckled and shook her head. “Stop yourself. I’m already your girl”.

“That you are”, Lexa’s eyes sparkled brighter than before and Clarke tugged down her scarf to kiss her again. Lexa didn’t move away to whisper; “I had them reopen a factory for ketchup and mustard. Thought the people deserved it”.

Clarke moaned quietly. “Keep talking”.

Lexa smirked. “The potatoes are also fresh fried with _a lot_ of olive oil”.

Clarke gripped her coat and pulled Lexa closer, her teeth tugging Lexa’s lower lip and smirking as the green eyes darkened. “Now you are just trying to get me wet”.

“Is it working?”

“It might”.

“Good”.

Clarke kissed the smirk off of the Commander’s mouth and sighed heavily, feeling so much warmer than before and yeah, this woman knew exactly how to plan a party as good as she could plan a battle. “I want you to come home with me tonight”.

Lexa smiled, softer and gentler, and nodded slowly. “Of course”.

“You were in Brooklyn?”

“Keep your voice quiet, my love”.

“This is my quiet voice, Lexa”.

“A bit quieter then”.

“I swear you are using this tone just to have public sex with me”.

Lexa laughed against Clarke’s neck and straightened her shoulders, keeping her ass on the table behind her, shifting down to cross her legs. She shivered and scooted closer to the fire burning in a metallic bin next to her. “Considering everything it took a long while for the ambassadors to convince me to have this celebration”.

“What? Why?”

Lexa looked around at the people, her eyes shifting up at the rooftops of the short buildings around. “I had to get patrol teams from all over the town just to circle the perimeter here. We are spending a lot of fuel for the generators for the bands, we had to get workers to make the food, it is… too much for a single afternoon”.

Clarke shook her head. “The people need this. Brooklyn is good news and we were terrified for a while of what would happen. It’s good to address a victory in more ways than just an article on a paper. You said it yourself; revolution is not all about business”.

“The whole city is here, Clarke, if there is an attack…”

“The patrol will handle it”, Clarke said and frowned, slipping her hands in Lexa’s coat pockets to find her hands. She was surprised not to find gloves wrapping around the long fingers. “Hey, it will be fine. Look around; the scene looks like the early movements. The energy of the people is innocent and light like it had been then. Everyone is ecstatic to be here. We needed this”.

Lexa nodded slowly and sighed. “We are living in a war, Clarke”.

Clarke shook her head and moved to sit on the table next to Lexa, shooting a look at the woman behind it just to make sure it was okay. She didn’t seem to mind. “Listen to the music. The lyrics are... they are beautiful. People make new music in the middle of the war. They make art in the middle of the war. You’ve read history, you know how important this is”.

Lexa looked over, eyes wide, interested. “I read the political and strategic parts”.

Clarke laughed and shook her head. “I was going to go in an art school”, she heard herself saying. “I would fight with my mom about it for _months_. She’s a very practical woman, my mother. She wouldn’t get how much I loved art, enough to make it my job. I got into medical after the first waves of riots and saw how many people were hurt in the conflicts. Tried to finish as soon as possible and with the demonstrations and everything I didn’t have time for art. Then Raven and I got back from college and I got a job in the museum before the hospital just to, you know, settle down, I read the history of art in books that… it was difficult to find. Art in revolutions, through different movements in the centuries all across the globe and… when there was _change_ , art would _flourish._ So this is… this is a very important part of moving forwards. This celebration is going to be a part in history”.

Lexa nodded slowly, looking as if she was struck by awe, her green eyes lighted up as they stared at Clarke. The light of the flames made her sun kissed skin glow and the green orbs reflected the fires, gentle shadows caressing Lexa’s high cheekbones and the sharp line of her jaw. The Commander looked tired, soft dark circles under her eyes, but she was so alive in that moment, so gorgeous that Clarke felt her heartbeat start to pick up speed.

Lexa was the one who let out a shaky breath and leaned away from the table to stand in front of her, cold hands coming up to cup Clarke’s face. The kiss was a quiet greeting and a beautiful revelation and Clarke sighed, feeling her hands trembling as they reached up to grip around Lexa’s wrists, holding the woman close. It was as if her chest tightened and softened at the same time, her body shuddering at the caress of the dry cold lips against hers, the warmth of the bonfire and Lexa’s body wrapping around her and settling in her gut gently.

Lexa pulled back very slowly, eyes still closed and her forehead cold as it settled on hers. “I think I’m falling in love with you, Clarke Griffin”.

Clarke laughed, breathless and _happy_ and awed, and she placed one more kiss on the commander’s lips, her thumbs rubbing at the steady pulse point on the wrists, feeling it knocking against her fingertips. She couldn’t help but grin, feeling grounded and so very alive. “This is also a very important part for history”.

Lexa laughed and called her _dork_ and kissed her and Clarke wished she was better with words so she could let Lexa know just how much she had already fallen in love with her as well. In the way Lexa kissed her again, she guessed the other woman somehow already knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A nice chapter, huh? Comments on the weed and alcohol ban? A friend of mine was terrified by the possibility of a ban like this and called me ruthless for even thinking of it. I told her that victory stands in the back of sucrifice but she didn't get it and made me sad. I should probably introduce her to the 100 but I have no patient left with the show so I'll probably let her in her peace.
> 
> A small comment that may and may not have anything to do with this story or the next chapters and the plot and stuff; the quiet before a storm is a terrific thing of nature...
> 
> Also any headcannons or thoughts or ideas you might want me to add or explore or write, throw them to me and I will do it.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Politics. A lot of them. I have some problems with the millitary as a concept and NATO and America's imperialistic tendencies and history. And borders, oh, I have a HUGE problem with borders. I just want people living all together.
> 
> You can skip the chapter if you want. It is just a filler to ease the perfect gorgeous love confession we had in the last one between our dear loves. Though the next one is going to be slightly rough.

“It’s been like two months, Clarke”.

She hummed, picking up a nail from the pile of tools Raven had placed on the second desk in the tight room above her shop. Clarke could faintly hear Wick working on a motorcycle underneath them and she was glad that things were better between him and Raven, the fights having lessened down to a mutual understanding that at times, they agreed to disagree about politics.

“It feels way longer than that”.

Raven hummed from her place on the chair next to her. She was leaned over a tiny device that Clarke had no idea what it would be used for. Apparently, Raven didn’t only make bombs for the Coalition but had other projects as well, about energy and saving electricity. It was why Anya hanged around the small shop more and more each day.

“Time goes by faster when the movement is… moving”.

Clarke snorted quietly and lifted an eyebrow at her friend, who was too interested in whatever she was fixing to pay attention to the words coming out of her mouth.

“So it’s not too soon?”

“No”.

“I feel like we have spent time… before”.

It made her friend lift her head and turn to look at her. “What? Before the war?”

“I don’t know it’s more… vague than that. We talked about it. Lexa had never left her hometown before the declaring of the war, she was an ambassador there for a few months and then she was called in DC for the council. So there is no way we crossed paths before the war”.

“So how…”

“Yeah, I don’t know”.

“I guess you clicked. That’s logical; people click with some people more than others”.

Clarke snorted and met Raven’s curious gaze. “I told her we are soulmates”.

Raven laughed, letting go of the mess of metal and thin cables. “What did she say?”

“That it is an idealistic way of thinking”.

Raven laughed again, louder. “Yeah, that sounds like Lexa”.

Clarke smiled and nodded. “You like her”.

“She is cool”.

“Cooler than you?”

“No one is cooler than me, Griffin. She can plan her war but I am the one bombing her enemies and being written in the news”.

Clarke chuckled. “I’m sure she is very thankful of that”.

“She better be”.

The settled in a comfortable silence, Clarke’s hands playing with the thick cover of the book she borrowed from the gallery downtown, Raven’s eyes returning to the small device in front of her. They relaxed in the familiar silence between them, the simple reminder of the times before the war, back in their shared dorm room, where they lived together and alone at the same time, comfortable and at ease with spending every minute of the day near one another.

They had been together through everything; school, the first demonstrations, college and their first advanced role in planning conquests, gathering people, giving away a lot of flyers and making speeches in the college’s general meetings. They shared and lived and fought through every day, taking care of one another while exams and riots and nightmares and times lacking hope pushed them down physically and mentally.

Footsteps on the stairs made them turn, the door opening, letting in a tired Octavia. Clarke nearly growled as a hand pressed against the wounded side and she moved, forcing Octavia sit. She didn’t like the paleness of her friend’s face.

“Shirt off”.

“Griffin, take me out for a drink first”.

“My hands have been inside your ribcage, we are way past first drinks”.

Octavia bit back a smirk and took off her rifle, lifting her shirt to show her clean white bandage. “Why are you out of bed?”

“I told my chief I was ready to be back on patrol”.

Clarke gulped down her curses as she slowly unwrapped the bandages from around Octavia’s torso, peeling off the cotton pad. The stiches were in place, all eleven of them, the skin around them red and looking a bit raw but other than that everything seemed fine on the outside. There was no bruising around the wound so she kind of guessed the inside was also intact.

Raven laughed and rolled her eyes, more indifferent than Clarke would have liked her to be about their childhood friend’s injury. “Is that smart?”

“Probably not but I was going crazy staying in bed”.

“Thread carefully, Blake”, Raven laughed as she took one look at Clarke’s harsh eyes.

“Sorry, Clarke, but I really, _really_ , needed to get out of the house. It’s been ten days”.

“It should have been five more. What did Jackson tell you?”

“I know, _I know,_ but I was _truly_ going crazy”.

“I hope you were because it is the only thing saving you at the moment”.

Octavia smiled sweetly up at her, knowing it would break the blonde’s stone face. It did; it took a moment and then Clarke was sighing, blue eyes softening down at her friend. They laughed.

“Miller is doing most of the job anyway”, Octavia shrugged. “The chief understands”. She suddenly brightened and reaching into her coat’s pocket, pulling out a tiny book with thin pages and worn out cover. She gave it to Raven.

“What’s this?”

“Ha, funny story, some good comrades from across the damn _world_ sent these little things as a gift with their report of what is happening in Europe”.

Clarke leaned over to take a look. “The Anarchist Cookbook?”

“Translated”.

“Is this Greek?”

“Yes, shit is happening but the report was from Turkey. Apparently, civil wars in both countries are happening over there as well, the borders are irrelevant in some way and the people are working together, different languages and religions and all”.

“Greece has some history of revolution I think”.

“Resistance in the second world war and then a few years later in a civil war”.

Clarke hummed. “Why the books?”

“Well, the report said the communist parties –Greek and Turkish– have the reigns over and they’re making progress with shaking off attacks from both oppressive states. I don’t know maybe they thought it was funny? The book _does_ write against communism and Turkey was, well… the countries ex-president or whatever was somehow a fascist so…”

“Believe it or not, I haven’t read this before”, Raven said as she flipped the pages. She lifted an eyebrow. “This is used; it has handwritten notes in it. A nerdy extremist is what we have here”.

“Greece was like… in NATO, wasn’t it?”

“Turkey too but I know they were not like friendly or whatever. Both governments were shit and competitive over the sea in the middle. There was _a lot_ of hatred between the people”.

“Racism?”

Raven shrugged, “Probably”.

“They are working together now”.

“That’s… that’s huge”.

“Yep”.

Clarke shut her mouth, swallowing her awe. “We have a ton of bases over there”.

“ _We_ don’t have anything over there”.

“You know what I mean. I think the military flew from the bases there to go bomb the Middle East in the beginning of everything”.

“There are American military bases all over Europe”.

“NATO bases”.

“They are American. We were the ones leading NATO”.

“Are they… active? Still?”

“Some of them are I think”, Octavia sighed. “But the people there are also fighting against them as well as their own oppressive states”.

“So like… anti-capitalistic and…”

“Anti-imperialistic fights?”

“At the same time?”

Octavia clapped her hands. “Sounds about right”.

“Imperialism is capitalism”.

“Yeah but it’s a different scale so a different fight”.

“Is it anti-imperialistic if America doesn’t practice its imperialistic tendencies?”

“Sure is. I mean… there is still military over there, right? I don’t think the soldiers are just sitting around”.

“Coalition will publish some article sooner or later”, Octavia sighed.

“True”, Raven said, dropping the tiny book on the pile of notes she had kicked underneath her desk. “Clarke, tell your girlfriend to tone down the ideological wording, we need the practical parts more”.

“I am doing no such thing. Feel free to tell Lexa yourself”.

“Nope, she will disagree and she is scary when she disagrees with something”.

“Hey, how are things with Lexa anyway?”

“Our sweet leader dropped the L-bomb”.

Octavia’s eyes went round.

Clarke kicked Raven’s chair. “She didn’t say that”.

“She told you she loves you?”

“No”.

“Yes”.

“Reyes–“

“She did”.

“She said and I quote; I _think_ I am falling in love with you”.

“Shit, she totally did. Did you say it back?”

“I think it is too soon”.

“ _Too soon?_ Are you stupid?”

“It’s been two months!”

“And a couple of lifetimes…”

“Shut up, Raven”.

“Wait, what? What was that?”

“Nothing–“

“Clarke thinks they are soulmates”.

“Oh my God…”

Octavia laughed so loud Wick paused whatever he was doing for a second. Clarke rubbed a hand down her face, rolling her eyes at her best friends, hating both of them. She dropped on her chair with a groan waiting for Octavia to gather herself.

Raven seemed to show some mercy. “How about you and Lincoln? Did he ask you to marry him just yet?”

Octavia blushed and Clarke felt her mouth pulling back in a smirk. “When he does propose, please, record yourself saying yes, I want Bellamy to see”.

“He is going to be so pissed!”

“Why? He likes Lincoln”.

“Please, he _tolerates_ Lincoln and his _dangerous position_ as a fucking chief of patrol”.

Clarke’s smirk deepened. “He will be so pissed you are get married at only twenty seven”.

“I am _not_ getting _married_!”

“Sure thing, O”.

“Of course not, Octavia”.

They laughed and Octavia groaned, dropping her head on the tip of her rifle. Just as expected, Clarke laughter was caught off as she leaned forwards and gently pulled her friend’s forehead away from the god damned weapon. Octavia smirked at the sudden seriousness and relaxed, knowing Raven was the only one left. She reached for the devise the mechanic was working on, pleased to make Raven’s chuckles stop at her throat, a hand shooting out to stop her wrist. “Don’t touch that”.

Octavia hummed with a smile. Clarke rolled her eyes and placed her friend’s assault rifle on the wall away from them. “So you are not getting married and I am ignoring Lexa telling me she loves me”.

“Why are you doing that? You are head over heels for her as well”.

“It’s too soon and she is who she is. There is–“

“You are so stupid sometimes, Clarke”.

“Thank you, I will stick with the stupidity for now because I am terrified”.

“Of what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. War? Her being the Commander? I don’t really know”.

“It’s going to be fine”.

“Look me in the eye and tell me that, O”.

“Hey, she is the star warrior of her patrol group, she needs the optimism”.

“Optimism is overrated”.

“I thought you were an idealist”.

“I went to med school, Raven, I studied biology and science and stuff”.

“You were ready to drop out to study fine arts and philosophy”.

“Thanks, O, you are real help”.

“Clarke, just… take a breath. I know you are scared and all but come on, we all know you are in love with her and you will not let her go anytime soon. And I don’t really know Lexa but I don’t think she will let you go either. And she took the step despite her position and everything so just… quit being a coward and just tell her too”.

Clarke gulped and leaned back on her chair while Raven nodded slowly.

“Good one, little Blake. Nice and simple and on point”.

“Thank you, Raven”.

“Clarke?”

“Huh?”

“What?”

“Nothing, I… Good speech, O”.

“Thanks. Are you convinced?”

“I think so?”

“Good. Will you tell her?”

“I think I will”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not really a part of plot, just talking about politics and filling up some parts of the story. Don't come to me too hard, yes? Thank you. This is a fic a few years into the future and only stands on our presence to get the scenery. Feel free to yell at me with a polite manner, we can talk and argue and stuff.
> 
> But also WHO THE HELL IS GOING TO WRITE THE OLD GUARD CLEXA AU????? You are going to make me write it myself, aren't you?? Shame on you, fandom, I am already writing this, I cannot commit to a long ass fic of immortal Clexa.
> 
> IMMORTAL CLEXA YOU GUYS WHY ISN'T THE FIC HERE ALREADY!!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings; violence

It was not a surprise – _it really wasn’t_ – she had imagined it happening, she had a lot of nightmares of it happening, she was waiting for it to happen. It’d happed to Luna when they were in college and police was still a thing. It had broken their friend; it’d broken Luna to the point of her dropping out of college and never stepping back to a demonstration, disappearing from the face of Earth. Raven somehow found out she had travelled somewhere in Europe and had settle down there in a small quiet town.

Clarke never forgave Luna for letting them terrorize her, for letting them force her away from the movement. It wasn’t fair; she didn’t know the details of what had happened to her in that police station but she had still hoped her friend wouldn’t run. Now, she might have expected this to happen to her as well but now that it was _actually_ happening, Clarke kind of understood.

There was something cruel about the terror busting up inside her stomach and gripping at her throat and making her heart _fucking stop_ for a second too long, sending sharp agony straight through her chest. She wondered if this was what a heart attack felt like and she knew it could be because she was a damn doctor. There was really no other way to explain the sudden nausea and the numbness that spread down her body just at the sight of them standing there and really, she was way too young to be experiencing a damn heart attack and her family had no history of the decease and-

She was grabbed before she could scream or take out her gun or turn on her heels and fucking run. A gloved rough hand pressed against her mouth. A blow in the back of her head had dark spots appearing in her eyesight and she cursed the man and his inability to knock someone out with one blow because it’d be way better than the lightheadedness and slicing stinging in the base of her neck.

Her knees gave out from under her.

It took one more blow for darkness to fill her mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cough* sorry?


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings; implied/referenced torture, aftermath of torture, industrial accidents, kidnapping, captivity, violence, blood and injury, terrorism

Lexa passed back and forth in the small dark room of the house the council would be meeting, her eyes burning with exhaustion and stubborn tears she refused to let out. She tried to breathe steady, her brain flashing with images of both Costia and Clarke, the grief feeling all too familiar in her chest. She had a tiny feeling she’d snap if she didn’t shoot someone, if she didn’t do something to distract her of the pain in her gut. In all honesty, that bullet had hurt less than this.

At least with Costia, she had a body. At least she _knew_ what had happened, she was there and had watched with horror as the metal completely shuttered underneath Costia’s boots and let her fall on the ground with a crushing sound that would echo in Lexa’s mind for years. The numbing grief she had felt was eased in a way at her girlfriend’s simple and heartbreaking funeral, was eased by their co-workers sympathy and own shared pain of seeing on more friend losing their life in the line of work.

This pain was… it was filled with rage and agony and confusion because how, _how_ did they _manage_ to get her? Lexa had ordered guards to watch Clarke without being seen. Her stomach turned dangerously as she remembered Ryder’s hurt body lying in the hospital and _how had they managed to sneak up on him and take him out?_ She knew exactly how; he had taken six stab wounds all across his chest and belly and he was still in and out of surgeries. Lexa could not be at the hospital because the guilt _hurt;_ it was impossible to walk the wide halls knowing Clarke was taken because of her, knowing her guard and close friend was balancing in a very thin line between surviving and dying on an operating table.

It was because of her. She knew it was because of her. But then a logical part of her mind would whisper there was no way they knew of her and hadn’t given everything to get her, dead or alive. If they knew Clarke was connected with the Commander, they’d be shouting it in the streets for her to walk out. She was the Commander and there was this thought she was the one holding the revolution in place but it was so, so wrong. She wasn’t the one holding the revolution, she was a simple tool, she was a detail in history and if she was killed, the revolution would keep going because the people were its root and power and those goddamned capitalist pigs and their little ass-licking followers never seemed to actually _get it_.

Not that it mattered. Clarke was still gone and a part of Lexa _knew_ it wasn’t because of her being the Commander. Clarke was a known face in the general meetings and the hospitals and around the bases downtown. She was a confident young woman that people nodded at when she passed, waved when she looked up, smiled when she offered her own greeting. And still, the bigger part of Lexa couldn’t help but wonder if being out of Clarke’s life would have kept her safer.

“Sit down”.

Anya sighed but from her place on the couch, her fingers tapping at the leather cover and her sharp brown eyes staying on her as Lexa passed on the thin grey carpet _back and forth, back and forth, back and forth,_ shaking her head, her tired bloodshot eyes looking more grey than green.

“How are her friends?”

“How do you think?”

“Anya–” Lexa chocked on her own voice and she hated this.

Anya sent an apology with her expressive eyes. “They are not good”.

She nodded, not expecting anything else. “Her mother?”

“I don’t know”.

“Find out. Please”.

Anya sighed again, heavily. She extended a hand to stop her cousin’s passing but the brunette completely ignored it. “Lexa…”

“We will call for a demonstration. For solidarity to the taken and the injured and…”

“She will not hear it. I doubt they have her in the city”.

“You cannot know that…”

“I’m sorry, Lexa. I have doubled the search groups, convinced Indra to arm them a bit more and place more patrols around”.

“That’s not your job”.

“You are right. But Indra wouldn’t do it herself”.

“Y-You shouldn’t have. It is… It is another kidnapping, it isn’t…” Lexa shuddered and closed her eyes as her throat tightened painfully around a knot of tears that formed there. “It doesn’t change anything”.

Anya was on her feet and in front of her, holding onto her upper arms, meeting her eyes. Her voice switched in their mother language and Lexa shuddered as the words shot right through her, more effectively than English. “ _It changes everything. You are the commander of this war, little cousin. We cannot have the commander broken_ ”.

Lexa breathed out, running a trembling hand down her face, a few exhausted tears escaping because of the pressure she put on her burning eyes with her fingers. She pulled back from Anya’s warm touch, her throat tightening again. She wanted to snap at her cousin that this wasn't about her, she wanted to shout and curse and break something and Anya meant well but she was all about the revolution and her job as a general and at the moment, she was missing that Clarke being taken had nothing to do with Lexa being the commander. She wanted to shout at her cousin just that but she knew she shouldn't.

And so she coughed and cleared her throat and forced her voice to come out steady. “Where are the ambassadors?”

“On their way. We need to talk about Texas. We are losing grounds again”.

Lexa grunted, focusing on it, storing her worry and grief in a small box. She’d let it out later that night, when she’d be alone, she’d feel it then. “Tell me”.

\---

Clarke woke up in a dark room and if concrete could mock a person then the ceiling above her would be loudly laughing at her. Clarke took a moment to close her eyes, feeling the back of her neck sting and her tongue heavy in her mouth, nausea rolling in her stomach slightly. She wanted to lift a hand and press against the throbbing of her nose, pat down the bridge of it to find out if it was broken. It sure felt like it.

She grunted and she was surprised to hear an equally pained grunt coming from next to her. It took some strength to turn her head, her eyes unfocused for a moment as the shapes split into two. The old man looked broken. An eye was missing and Clarke had never vomited at the sight of an injury before but she did now, her gut twisting and bile rising up and up and pushing out of her parted mouth, some of it falling on her as she turned a bit too slow to let it spill on the floor next to her. Her head span and her arms almost gave out from under her body and she was sure she had a very bad concussion. She gripped at her medical white robe and pulled a face at the smell of the mess she had made.

“It is fine”, a rough voice came from behind her as she gripped at her head, trying to stop another wave of vomit from travelling up her body. “You are not the first one to throw up on themselves”.

She wanted to turn. She really did. But her neck and head hurt and her heart was thumbing against her chest violently and she needed water.

“I need water”.

“Nah, don’t ask them for anything”.

“What?”

“Don’t ask them for anything. They will torture you before they give it to you”.

“What?”

“They will take you to a freezer and give you water drop by drop”.

“Where am I?”

“No idea”.

“Who are you?”

“Call me Echo”.

“Echo… what the hell is going on?”

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t remember much”.

“You are badly hurt. Your head is bleeding”.

“Shit”.

“Accurate”.

“What is this place?”

“Some basement, somewhere”.

“There… There were Reapers waiting for me”.

“Yeah, I figured. This place is one of their bases. We were all taken”.

“Echo, I am a doctor and I probably have a very bad concussion. So I will lay back and sleep for a little bit. If they bring us water, wake me up so I can have some. If I have a seizure, I will need you to put something soft under my head and put me on my side so I don’t injure my head even more or choke on my spit. Don’t hold me down, it will pass. When it does and I don’t wake up, make sure I can breathe properly”.

“Sure thing, Doc, I got you. Stay out of it as long as you can. It’s the only break you are going to get in here”.

\---

Lexa had seen many people breaking down and Raven Reyes was one more name being put in that long list. The mechanic looked completely shuttered as she sat at a bench, shaking hands tangled in her long untied hair, face as pale as the thick snow covering the road just outside her shop. The younger woman was trembling, from fear or exhaustion or cold, Lexa could not know, desperation clutching onto her. A part of Lexa urged her to turn and leave and let Raven be alone with her pain so she could alone with hers but she ignored it and stepped inside, her breath fogging the still air in front of her mouth.

Raven looked up with red swollen eyes. Something tightened in her face at the sight of Lexa standing there looking like a mess. A part of Raven wanted to scream to leave her shop because she was the commander and why didn’t she cause havoc to find her?

“You better find her”.

“I will try”.

“No, Lexa. You better _find_ her”.

“I will find her”.

A harsh sob ripped itself from Raven’s mouth and Lexa watched her lower her face in her palms. She reached out to the grey wall next to her, placing her bare palm on the freezing bricks, trying to keep her body from breaking in the way Raven’s already had and she gulped heavily, closing her eyes.

“She is our strength, Lexa, she can’t…”

Lexa didn’t want to hear it. She clenched her jaw, feeling a slice of pain in her chest.

“I will find her”.

\---

Clarke gritted her teeth and, oh, this red and hot feeling was a new thing. She felt it growing in her gut and she tried to find a word for it; it could be hate, anger, maybe it was fucking wrath or fury. No, it was somehow crazier than these, it was a red and burning _mania_ and it grew inside her, taking root and shielding her from the freezing terror hovering in the area of the dark room they were held in.

Echo told her it was a couple of hours since she first woke up and the water they got was sprayed on them from the rusted pipes on the ceiling, making people sob with relief and desperation as they tilted their heads up, opening their mouths to catch some of the dirty liquid on their tongues and down their throats.

There were about twenty people in there, all of them beaten and tore apart, silent and broken. Clarke had managed to sit up after getting over a few waves of nausea, examining the wounds on the bodies she saw around. There were broken fingers, a few cracked ribs for sure, bruised faces and narrow cuts. Clarke gritted her teeth at the sight of ripped clothes and shallow breaths and her inability to help them. How the hell would she help them with only her bare hands?

She remembered Octavia lying in a stretcher, her fingers inside her friend’s body to stop the bleeding. She remembered Lexa’s body frozen on a bed, agony in her green eyes as she gripped at the sheets underneath her and gritted her teeth to keep the pain at bay. Clarke remembered patients with empty looks, looking away from her as she wrapped their mutilated fingers in simple casts and bandages. She remembered little children with hallow cheeks waiting in line for some food and tear gas falling on them, making them chock and heave and sob in the middle of the street, the parents too weak to pick them up and ran.

It should scare her; this manic feeling she was feeling, the want to hurt, to destroy, to kill, but it didn’t scare her, it gave her newfound iron strength to stare at the men that approached her with sly smiles and a sadistic look in their gaze.

“Tell us about the Coalition, Doctor Clarke Griffin”.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Ah, the million dollars question…”

“Who are you?”

He laughed. “Emerson”.

“That’s not your real name”.

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. You will never know”.

“Perhaps”.

“Well, aren’t you a sharp one, doctor? You know, you are a famous face around the city, down in the streets, has a man three times her size following her everywhere. Tell me, Clarke, why do you have a guard?”

“I’m telling you nothing, fucker”.

He hummed, disappointed. “Truth is; they pay me to scare your damned people, not torture them or mutilate them but well, boss wasn’t specific of how I’d do it. And they did quite some damage to the world, right?” He chuckled. “Revolution and shit, a bunch of lying fucks managed to create this mob that burned down everything. Do you really know the state the world was left in? Our country? Your people destroyed everything. They’re calling me the terrorist now, imagine that; _me_. I’m trying to stop this nonsense before it tears down everything this country has built”.

“You are torturing people. For what? Revenge? On the movement?”

He hummed innocently. “Money is good; it helps me and whoever is left of my family get through the days. Revenge for throwing the whole fucking world into chaos plays a part on the reasons”.

“Money is irrelevant and you are… you are killing people for it”.

“Money is never irrelevant. Your little shit show is going to end soon. This… This nonsense you’re calling revolution, it’s more like a coup of some… some mob that wants the world to fall into anarchy”, he laughed bitterly. “It is going to end”.

“I’m going to fucking kill you for this, asshole”.

“Oh, no, beautiful, I’m being polite with you, why are you forcing my hand like this?”

They took off her boots and then her socks and she was barefoot and tied down on a table and she clenched her jaw because she knew what would come.

“Tell me of the Coalition, doll”.

Her eyes met his. “Do your worst. You are getting nothing out of me”.

He chuckled and lifted a wooden narrow board.

\---

“Echo?”

“Clarke”.

“It’s hot in here”.

“Yeah, they don’t want us freezing to death”.

“The only heated building in the Washington DC is a torture dungeon”.

Echo scoffed, turning her swollen eye on her. The other remained bruised and closed completely. “How lucky are we to spend the winter here right?”

“Sarcasm is like… the most unnecessary thing at the moment”.

“Fuck you, you are here, what? Three days? I’m here maybe a month; I can use as much sarcasm as I want, Doc”.

“How is this place even heated up?”

“It’s closer to hell?”

Clarke scoffed and coughed as her lungs pressed against broken ribs. She groaned.

“I’m going to kill them all”.

“Ha, be my guest, Griffin”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the story took a sharp turn, right? It did but well, this is indeed a war setting -couldn't have too many butterflies flying around. Truth is I don't really like hurting characters like this for the development or something but here we are and I feel like a hypocrite. Clarke is going to be fine though in the end, don't you worry...
> 
> I guess the propose of this turn is because torture by various organizations is a thing that happens in civil wars and well... yeah. I also wanted to have some challenge for Clarke so she can become waheda in some way, this is going to change her and I want to explore the aftermath of the whole thing.
> 
> So yeah, a few rough chapters will follow. This is a traumatic experience in its full capacity or whatever. Excuse the next spaced out updates, I am trying to get it right and I have a vacation planned out so it will take a while. Wish me a happy summer!
> 
> Ask me about the Reapers, these chapters will be a few and you will find out more about this terrorism organization but shoot questions anyway if I haven't written something you'd like to know.
> 
> My American friends we're watching what is happening over there and you have our unlimited solidarity. You are so beautiful and strong people, keep on fighting for what is right. Stay safe, take care of yourselves and wear your masks.
> 
> ps. my dudes soulmate thing is nice and all but i feel so bad for Costia i feel like she is destined to die in every universe or something there are so few fics that keep her alive and safe and kind and wonderful and we had had like three lines about her in the show but still i care about this character more than others we've had this whole time *sigh* rest in peace dear Costia i am sorry i killed you as well


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings; torture, aftermath of torture, captivity, violence, blood and injury, terrorism, brief mention of a terrorist attack

Lexa paced and paced and paced on a thin carpet in some house she had never been before and it seemed like this was the only thing she was doing these past couple of days. It had been eighty five hours and she had slept around ten hours max in those three and a half days. Her body felt way too heavy and she probably needed a bath or something and for the first time in so long, she wished there was someone else to take care of the political messes the Council’s arguments were.

Not to mention her heart. Or her soul. Or her spirit or whatever lived inside her body and ached with a pain deeper than the bottom of the sea. It was the heaviest thing existing in her being at the moment. Lexa had to press a hand to her own chest in a useless effort to somehow fill up the shallow pit in there. It didn’t help.

“Commander, please, this is not wise”.

“It is what it is. The people want it”.

She didn’t recognize her voice anymore. There was no energy left in her body to have her brain connect some dots about typical political figures or appearances; her voice came out weak and cracking and not at all appropriate for the Commander or a damned war meeting. They could honestly suck it though; she didn’t have the energy to even care at the moment…

As much as Lexa tried, she could not blink away the image of Clarke’s wrecked apartment. The bed broken, the bedside table in three pieces, books covering the floor, some of them burnt, others just tore up by some blade. The blue curtain had somehow travelled all the way to the bathroom, where the tiles had been broken by some hammer, where bottles of shampoo, toothbrushes and bottles of medication were thrown on the floor. The drawings… Oh, the drawings had hurt the most. Lexa kept the pieces of ripped paper in a simple envelope in her bag, her being not strong enough just yet to have them pierced back together.

“Commander–“

“Titus, let it go. The decision has been made”.

“You can stop this!”

Lexa loathed this man’s voice. She didn’t know why or how but she felt like his voice had been haunting her for years, before she even met him. How was he chosen as an ambassador, Lexa could never know…

“I’m stopping nothing. The people opened the borders and took the people in. I’m not going to force them back out. They are political refugees”.

“We’re losing Texas, Commander. We don’t have time to deal with this”.

 _Fuck you_ , she wanted to spat to him but she couldn’t.

“Fuck you, Titus”.

Lexa’s eyes widened in horror, thinking she had actually growled it out loud. But no, Titus wasn’t looking at her but at Anya, who stood from her seat on the couch and was glaring at him so harshly that Lexa was surprised he didn’t catch fire from the glare alone. She truly loved her cousin, she truly did.

“You will never talk to me like this, ever again, ambassador”.

“Until you know your place, I will talk to you as I fucking please”.

“Enough!” Lexa stepped between them because they didn’t have time for this. Her mind wasn’t in the right place to deal with a shouting match, even if she was in need of one. A part of her wanted the controlled shouting, the noise, the distraction. A big part also softened at the way they both fell silent at the sound of her voice. This was something she could control. “Enough, please, we don’t have time for this”.

“Commander, I stand by my point. You have the power to stop this risky action”.

Lexa caught the opening. Oh, bless the skies for this, because she was in no mood to argue again about the waves of political refuges coming at their borders, getting her attention and the Coalition’s extra care. Truth was there was not much to argue, she wasn’t a goddamned monster to throw them back out of this country they seek help from, not when she was setting some pillars of some better world. The refuges were welcome and no shouting match between her ambassadors could change her mind.

But the topic of power; oh, she jumped into it like a thirsty man in the desert would jump in a damn lake after days with no water.

“I am not the one in power”, she hissed and Titus stood straighter and, oh, she was angry. She was so angry and desperate and hurting and he was testing her patience. He seemed like he always tested her patience. “If you want a place in this Council, you need to remember this. The commander is _not_ the one in power. The people are and the people of this country opened their own borders. Those people who came through? They are our people now, I don’t care if you like it or not and you have some good arguments of the danger of it but, no, I don’t care, Titus. The people decided and we are rolling with it”.

“Commander–“

“I don’t want to hear it. You need to stop viewing me as the one in power. I am no President of the United States, I’m an honest-to-God tool of this revolution and you need to understand this. The people chose me to make the tough decisions but they are the core of everything, do you understand? They gave me _some_ authority but I am not the one in control. I have _no_ control over what they want to do, over what world they will decide to build. And if they want the refuges in this, then they will have them. I will not force my personal political beliefs on the people. Or yours. Or anyone’s in this Council. The people will do as they wish and we have one damn job”.

“We bear the tough decisions so they don’t have to”.

Lexa’s eyes snapped to the side, found deep brown looking at her.

“Yes. Thank you, Dante”.

The man offered a gentle smile. “Of course, Lexa, I agree with you”.

“Am I understood then?” Lexa turned to the rest of the ambassadors and she wished she was home; home back in her parent’s house, near the thick woods, Costia by her side and Anya having Artigas in a headlock, shouting at him the best of Lenin’s points; home in Clarke’s bed with the blonde curled up in her arms, talking about the people she met in the hospital today, talking about the history of art in revolutions and war.

Both of these places were gone; more than the half of these people in her mind were gone –dead or missing. Her soul ached and didn’t have the time to rest. At the same time, she felt like this was right, this was how it was supposed to be. This wasn’t the first time she was feeling so helpless and alone. The chorus of _yes, Commander_ did not help.

\---

“Clarke!”

“Fuck off, Emerson”.

“How is my favorite doll?”

“Fuck _off_ , Emerson”.

“Now, what is that tone? I have a meal for you; do you want me to take it away?”

“You can do whatever you want, Emerson”.

“Yes, that is very true and the ultimate fun”.

“ _Bastard_ ”.

“Echo! My friend! Any more secrets you want to tell me about your old comrades? I sent a team on the ones you told me about in our last meeting. They are dead, if you are wondering…”

“I will kill you, asshole”.

“Now, now, I think Clarke here should have the honors of that if she gets out. You are my friend, Echo, you truly are, but my relationship with Clarke is more intimate”.

“Fuck off, Emerson”.

He chuckled, slowly placed the plastic plate of a piece of dry bread on it, mustard to the side. “Look, I found your favorite! Take it as an apology; I know I went hard on you on our last session”.

“I don’t want your mustard”.

“Well, seems like you are in a mood to hurt my feelings, aren’t you?”

A kick. A sharp cry of pain. God fucking damn him.

_“Hey!”_

“Stay out of it, Echo, or the next one is going to be in your head”.

A grunt.

“Clarke, doll, apologize to me for the attitude”.

“Sorry”.

“See. Mutual respect is the best thing. Eat your bread now, yes? I will see you soon”.

“Fuck off, Emerson”.

He laughed. Clarke watched him go, reaching out from her place on the floor and gripping the plastic plate, dragging it closer. “We need to find how this building is heated up”.

“Seriously? _That’s_ what you are thinking right now, Doc?”

She looked at the door of the dungeon, at the broken bodies scattered around the room. She shrugged with her good shoulder. “The whole place smells like gas”.

\---

“So are you ready to tell me about your guard just yet?”

Clarke gritted her teeth against the drilling pain on her side. She tried to keep her breathing calm and not too deep-not too shallow. There were two or three or four broken ribs on the left side, in the place Emerson’s fists landed a couple of times a few hours ago, there were some bruised muscles close to her lungs, the nerves on her feet were too sensitive. She gritted her teeth against the pain and managed to tilt up her head to look at the man in front of her.

Emerson was a calm man. Around his early forties, a few grey hair appearing through the light brown locks. Deep lines mapped out his face, around his brown eyes and his smart cutting mouth. Shallow cheeks, emotionless deep gaze, a scar on his eyebrow. She fought against the shudder threatening to pass down her spine, the description all too familiar in her ears.

“Doll? You still with me?”

“Fuck off”.

“Ah, there she is”, Emerson said with a smile that looked real and honest. His eyes never changed though and Clarke gritted her teeth again, the coldness of his face fueling up her hate for him. “I asked a question”.

“I don’t know about any guard”.

“Lies again, Clarke, really?” he sighed, picking up the damned wooden board.

She pulled at the leather locking her wrists on the chair without thinking. They didn’t loosen up at all and she settled her hands back on the plastic, fingers curling around the edges of the armrests. Their eyes met again. She thought of spitting at his feet; it didn’t go too well the last time so she swallowed heavily, wishing for a time when he would be in front of her and she would be armed.

“You are going down sooner or later”.

“Ha, good one, doll, but no, I don’t think so”.

She hummed quietly, her eyes on his instead of the board on his hand. He frowned a bit and approached her. “Something is different with you today, Clarke”.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah”, he whispered, slowly took her chin between his fingertips, pulling her head up as he came to stand in front of her, towering over her. She tried to ignore the way her skin seemed to crawl at the feeling of him so close. His sudden gentleness made her anxious and he was playing with her head he was playing with her head he was playing with her head.

“What is it? What do you know, doll?” Emerson mumbled and leaned closer and his breath smelled like mint and smoke and she gritted her teeth, trying to stop her own muscles from locking up, moving forwards, launching up and locking her jaw around his neck and _tearing_ at the muscle and skin and the beating pulse on the side.

Clarke breathed out heavily. A sharp stab of pain went through her from her broken ribs and her mind blurred lightly, the urge flying away. She tried to swallow down the gasp crawling up her throat when she breathed in again.

His fingers left her chin and she felt calmer.

“What do you know, Clarke? A schedule attack? Why are we going down?”

“Because I will kill you all, Emerson”.

He paused and looked in her eyes and the seconds tickled by very slowly or very fast. She couldn’t know; she had lost all sense of time in this basement. Emerson clicked his tongue and breathed out and straightened his back away from her away from her away from her and he looked back at the second Reaper that leaned in the shadows of the far corner of the room. The other man lifted a questioning eyebrow and tilted a cigarette between his fingers, waiting for an order.

Emerson met her cloudy eyes again, the blue of her iris being only vivid color in the dark room. “I want all teams alerted for the next few days in the streets. She knows more than she lets on. I will try to pull it out of her but until then I want you sharp”.

“An attack?” the soldier asked and Clarke all but growled at the new voice. He was a silent one, this Reaper, watching –quiet and calm– with an empty but calculating gaze as her people were been beaten up and tortured in this room. He never said a word, he never made a sound, he never touched any of them or a weapon. He only stood and watched –like a shadow, like a ghost.

“Possibly”, Emerson said and looked at Clarke again. “Inform the others”.

The man nodded and slipped away, dropping the cigarette on the concrete floor as he went. The orange color of the burning tip magnetized her eyes and Clarke stayed still as she watched it glow in the dark.

“Tell me, Clarke, don’t make this difficult again”.

Clarke breathed in, trying to push through the pain that shot right through her. Her nose was stuffed with dry blood and Clarke turned her head to rub it against her shoulder, against the familiar fabric of her medical robe, her eyes on the burning tip of the cigarette. She breathed in again –right before Emerson’s hand took a hold of her throat and forced her eyes away from the orange glowing burning tip.

Gas.

The whole place smelled like gas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am back, my dear folks, with a heavy chapter, I know I know, but let me tell you the torture itself is not the main thing of this plot so this setting is going to end soon I promise a bit patience is all I am asking.
> 
> Shoot questions and thoughts and ideas and your feelings about this chapter and our babies that I am putting through a rough time. I have been away for a while and my dudes have I forgotten about everything that is happening in the real world, my mind is still stuck in that beach and my very nice and comfortable tent. Camping is the escape from everything I swear, you should try it if you haven't already.
> 
> Alright, you have a good day and keep safe cause the state has left us unprotected in front of coronavirus again so take care as much as you can and at the same time demand a better goddamned health system. Wear your masks while doing so.
> 
> Excuse any mistakes, English is not my first language folks.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings; industrial accident, character death, blood and injury, violence, implied/referenced torture

“Doc, you shouldn’t be up”.

“Just help me across the room, Echo”.

“Your feet are messed up and my shoulder is in no better condition. You will have us crashing on the floor as soon as we get two steps”.

“Look, I am going to that wall, you can help or not”.

“Fine, shut up”.

The both groaned as soon as they stood, Clarke holding onto Echo’s good shoulder, Echo keeping as much of her weight as possible. Her feet still hurt and Clarke gritted her teeth as the pain drilled through her body and in her brain, making her heart throb hard against her chest. The people around them eyed them with shallow eyes, some of them frowning at the sudden movement. They took in the filth covering both of their clothes, managing to make out what used to be a medical white robe.

Clarke nearly collapsed back down on the floor when they leaned against the pipes in the opposite wall of the dungeon. She gripped at the rusted pipes and sighed in her whimpers, focusing on the metal under her skin. She took a moment to press her forehead on it, gathering her strength to focus her mind and then slowly turned to lean her ear on the metal hoping, _hoping,_ for a sound of gas passing through.

She didn’t know if she passed out because of blissful _solace_ of actually hearing gas echoing against the metallic round walls of the pipes or because of the agony that overtook her body and mind for a moment as she leaned back and accidently let one of her feet touch the floor more than she could handle.

Either way, she woke up on the floor, feeling dazed and exhausted and _pained_ and Echo was sitting next to her, glaring at her limp body with no care. Clarke would have chuckled at the sight but couldn’t find her strength to do so, opting to look up and manage a few words.

“We are going to need an axe and someone strong enough to swing it”.

“There is a fire emergency thingy across the room they take us to beat us up, big enough to hold an axe or something”.

“Are you strong enough to swing it?”

Echo glared. “I thought you were a doctor?”

Clarke sighed and looked around the people. The dungeon looked different from the other side and Clarke cursed her brain for the confusion it was causing to itself. She numbly turned to find a pair of eyes looking at her and she sighed, nodding at the young man.

“Hey”.

He narrowed his eyes.

Clarke licked her lips as she eyed him. He was around her age, maybe older, but he didn’t seem completely wrecked by punches. His eyes still held some spark and his shoulders seemed to be in place and there were muscles popping out of his upper arms. “Do you want get out of here?”

His eyes narrowed even more. “What are you talking about?”

She reached into her pocket and took out the small packet of matches and shook it to make a soft sound. “I need you to find a way to get the axe from across the room they torture us in and break one of these pipes. Then we will light up one of these and cause an explosion”.

He shook his head. “We will blow up the room we are in?”

“Feel free to break another pipe if you want”.

He huffed but nodded. “How am I going to get the axe?”

Clarke eyes were already dropping but she managed to shrug. “No idea”.

“That’s just great”.

She hummed. “I’m Clarke Griffin”.

“John Murphy”.

“Nice to meet you, Murphy, I got you the start of an escape plan. Be a good comrade and find a way to finish it”.

“I don’t really want to be caught in an explosion, Griffin”.

“Well, Murphy, if we don’t burn, how are we going to light up the night?”

He snarled.

\---

Lexa jerked.

She gripped at her stomach.

Her hand didn’t come back soaked in blood.

She was awake. She was fine. She was alive.

She sighed, sending a look at her surroundings. Gustus was fast asleep in his sleeping bag, a foot away from her, their boots placed next to each other between their legs in perfect order. The candles in the base were lighted up and burning softly and Lexa could hear quiet talking and laughter coming from a group of friends from the other side of the wide open room. She took in a deep breath, hoping the scent of burning wax and paper would calm her racing heart.

She had nightmares of getting shot before it even happened to her. The nightmares came first to her when she was a child and her adopted parents had been worried, because little Lexa could not know what a gun looked or sounded like at the age of three. Their family was a safe place, Lexa had never come in close contact with any kind of weapons and the small town they lived in was free of violence and the use of firearms. Lexa’s family didn’t have a TV just yet and honestly, the nightmares couldn’t be explained easily. She could not understand where this phobia of guns came from, why her spine would tense at the sound of a weapon going off. They guessed it had to do with some trauma little Lexa may or may not had been through before she was adopted.

When she actually got shot, well, she wasn’t really surprised. She had seen it happen a million times before; she had expected it.

As Lexa grew older, she doubted it was a memory from her life or, at least, this life. She always had this vague pull -this odd gravitating force- around certain faces, around certain things. She could not explain it, so she started to read books about the mind, about a person's thoughts, philosophical books talking about how everything was a simple idea. She had been way too young to be reading philosophy and Plato but her teachers had been proud of her and she needed _some_ answer for those dreams -an answer beyond the limits of biology and even simple logic.

It took Costia coming into her life in a form of a teenager, all easy smiles and a calm attitude. Costia had taken a look at her book at the park just outside school and she had laughed, hard and open and excited, and she had reached into her pack, taking out a similar thick book with Aristotle’s’ name written in faded gold letters on front page. They had both laughed, feeling way older than they really were, and Lexa’s odd need to protect this girl crushed through her in waves.

Costia liked science and the woods and space and she talked on and on and on how she’d love to get to college and study astrophysics. Costia was passionate about this materialism and it had gotten one short conversation to convince Lexa to leave Plato to the side and read this Marx instead. It took a few weeks for Lexa to ran to Costia with wide eyes and ask her for a second book, the other girl taking her hand and leading her to their town’s little library, to the abandoned and dusty shelf of philosophic books.

They had fallen in love on the floor there, between the dusty shelves, talking about whatever they read, trying to understand it, trying to spot pieces of it in the daily lives of the people of their town.

And Marx became Engels and Engels became Lenin, even fucking Stalin, and Proudhon and Bakunin and they would _fight_ about this man so much, the librarian would come to shush them with an amused smile on his face. And the local books would stop being enough and they needed _more_ and there was the internet but money wasn’t enough and they’d finish school but they wouldn't get any kind of scholarships and their families couldn’t afford to send them to college.

They chopped wood under the burning sun and in the middle of freezing snow and they would joke with their co-workers about the exploitation of the working class in capitalism and the older men and women would laugh at these young girls and shake their heads and they kept chopping and chopping and chopping until there was rage because they were getting frostbites, more of their co-workers would start to have accidents during work, at times losing whole limbs at the creaking machines. And it was always like this, work was never easy, but those machines _needed to be changed at_ some point _, Lexa_ because someone would lose their life sooner than later.

Lexa didn’t know if Costia expected to be the example of the long speeches she gave in the few general meetings that happened in the factory. Lexa did not know if _she_ had expected Costia to be an example of the fatal industrial accidents. She’d thrown up right after the small funeral, she almost burned every damned book they had read together, cursing everything and anything until she turned her anger to the whole system they lived in and which had taken her best friend and girlfriend from her just because it wouldn’t spent a penny to change the old machines, it wouldn’t give the opportunity to Costia to go off to college and study astrophysics and it wasn’t _right_ and she was a girl that had read too many books about capitalism and how it worked in general and she didn’t want to live in it. _She didn’t want to live in it_.

She never talked about the books she read anymore. She would take long notes and give them to her cousin and Anya, being too tired after her own work to do anything physicaly productive, read her notes, read the same books, took her own notes and they passed them between them quietly, figuring out the wrong and right on their own.

The factory she had worked in was the first damn factory in the state to close after they'd agreed on it in a general meeting and she was still so proud of it. The conquest had taken everyone by surprise and their boss had all but exploded when the work shut down and the deliveries stopped and there had been _so many_ complaints by every other company they had been providing wood to.

But Lexa wouldn’t have it, her co-workers wouldn’t have the government giving praise to fascism even if their town was too far away and too quiet and peaceful for this kind of people to grow there. It had been a fact though, their government had been praising fascism and Lexa really - _really-_ had had enough of this bullshit. And Costia would have been roaring if she hadn’t broken her neck on the floor under her post in the factory.

They hadn’t expected the force they had been met with by the state, by the police forces managing to break any kind of demonstration trying to be held in their small town, hunting people back inside their houses, making them lock themselves in. Lexa had had to fight her own people to keep them in the streets, to keep them in the way of the demonstrations because _oppressive mechanisms of a capitalist state, guys, we have talked about this_ and _Jesus Christ, Alexandria, they will crush us out there._

They had managed though and New Hampshire had held the first riot against the whole goddamned system, rather than the separated problems the system had been spitting on them. She had been a simple member of the Coalition then, because these people were so very few, but they had been talking about the need of a unity of all political sides and ideolgies and they had been trying to do something and she had wanted to help and apparently the Coalition turned out to be a big fucking thing and soon Lexa was a general and then she was organizing people in her whole damn State and then, they had send Indra to help her all the way from fucking New York.

The Coalition had immediately taken an interest by the glowing depth of the political fight in the State and Lexa had been called to get to New York and then, in Washington DC and take a leadership role because _this girl knows her shit_ and the Council was in long raging talks about organizing more people and pulling up a patrol to protect the people from the murderous oppressive mechanisms that were sent to terrorize people by whatever was left of the goversment and the governors and the city councils and there were whispers in the Coalition's council of declaring some kind of war in a few months to take this revolutionary movement a step further and Costia would have _loved_ the city and the people.

Choosing her as the Commander wasn’t really a surprise. She knew the ambassadors and she knew of their beliefs and she had managed to balance their decisions more often than not, always reminding them the people were the ones making the calls of the long game. They had voted for her as the Commander and she had accepted. The old Commander –an old communist with the kindest voice and the hardest dark blue eyes– had been pleased and happy to step down from his duty and hand it to her. He stuck around, of course, teaching her of strategy and playing chess with her, helping when the situation called for his experience.

He had fled Washington DC to go fight somewhere in the mountains of Colorado.

“Lexa? Sweetheart? Are you crying?”

She turned to her uncle, her old companion, and wiped at her eyes, pressing her hands on the bridge of her nose to make the sobs being born in her chest to _stop_.

“I was thinking about Costia…”

Gustus sat up, immediately looking wide awake. “Lexa, she is not Costia”.

“I know, I know, I just… I can’t lose…”

“Hey, you are losing nobody”.

“It’s been a week, Gustus. It’s been a fucking _week_. What am I doing?”

“You’re doing your best, Lexa. Look at me, please. Clarke is the biggest pain in the ass they could have captured and, honestly, I feel sorry for them”.

Lexa chuckled at the words that came from her always serious uncle. “Not helping”.

“Right, well, you are the one good with the words in the family”.

Lexa chuckled and pain sliced right through her gut. “Shit, I want to be out there. I am doing _nothing_ to find her. I’m the fucking commander and I am doing nothing”.

“That is not true, Lex. We have never had that many rescue groups working. We’re finding more and more of their bases. You can be out there with them but know that Indra will have a heart attack”.

Another wet chuckle dragged out of Lexa’s tight chest. She pressed her hands on the aching spot there, rocking back and forth lightly, trying to breathe properly again. “I feel so useless”, she whispered and rubbed at her bloodshot eyes and for once, she wished for some of the alcohol she had fucking banned. “I know I… I am leading this war but I feel so lost without her. I feel like I am playing chess tied to the table and with a gun on my head”.

Gustus nodded very slowly, his face twisting at the image. He set a gentle hand on her shoulder and gripped, brown eyes soft and pained. “We will find her, okay? I will get out there with the patrols if needed. I will bring her back to you, little one, and you will place this game just like you are meant to”.

She shook her head and closed her eyes. “She’s my hope, Gus. And she is missing”.

\---

“Are we ready then?” Clarke whispered to Echo and she honestly thought the other woman would beat her up for real if she could.

Echo nodded. “Alright just… punch me”.

“I can’t move my arms to save my life, Echo, you do it”.

“You are barely standing. I don’t want to punch you”.

“Yeah, you do”.

“Yeah, I do, you are a pain in the ass”, Echo mumbled and then Clarke’s head was snapping to the side as a solid punch –harder than she expected– landed on her jaw.

Clarke spat a mouthful of saliva and blood and glared at the woman in front of her, anger gathering in the pit of her stomach because goddamn her, it was harder than fucking expected and it hurt all the way from her teeth down to her ribs. However, it earned the whole attention of the people of the room and Clarke snarled, her arms tensing as she aimed a punch of her own.

It was pathetic; Echo grabbed her arm easily and quickly landed two more hits that had Clarke wheezing and coughing. Her knees bent dangerously under her weight and the blonde doctor gritted her teeth, placing a hand over her hurt side, feeling the unnatural curve of her ribcage. She huffed out a breath, trying to blink away the dark spots that hovered in front of her line of sight, barely able to step away from another flying punch and, wow, Echo seemed to have some serious anger issues and she was obviously taking them out on Clarke.

Damn her.

Clarke would be glad to introduce her to Jackson and his psychology degree.

Echo leaned closer to her ear; “They are all here”.

Clarke groaned and cursed the world and then herself for her ideas. “Make it good then. Is Murphy still here?”

“I don’t see him”.

Clarke closed her eyes and prepared for the last punch.

It was a kick to the back of her knee that sent her falling back, Echo’s hold being the only thing able to stop some of the force of her fall to the concrete floor.

It still hurt like a motherfucking bitch.

Clarke hollowly coughed, the taste of blood filling her mouth and shit, it wasn’t good.

“What a show!” a laughing voice called out and then, hands were grabbing Echo and dragging her away from Clarke and Clarke looked up to Emerson’s joyful smile. “Doll, sweetie, what did you do to her?”

“Fuck off”, she managed between wet wheezes and spat on the floor; the blood was as red as a communist fucking banner and the odd thought somehow gave her some comfort. She spat again, in front of Emerson’s boots and his awfully neat shoelashes.

She seriously needed a fellow doctor to check her out because the scale of the pain she was feeling in her chest was kind of alarming.

“She beat you good. Better than me at least. I am always holding back”.

“I’m touched… by your… concern. Thanks, Emerson”.

“Anytime, doll, we don’t want you dead just yet but this was entertaining”.

“Sure. Glad you… you enjoyed… something… oh, shit”.

Emerson lowered on the tips of his boots to lean closer, check her injuries. Clarke tried really hard to stay still, not let her own hand from snapping out and grabbing onto the wrist of the palm that was touching her skin. His touch was practical and quick and moved as if her skin burned him and she was glad of it.

“Well, shit, doll, your side is a mess. I think you might need a doctor now”.

“Good idea”, she agreed, gulped down the pained whimpers crawling on her tongue. “Just drop me off in the… hospital, you know… I will send you a card… when I… when I recover”.

“Are there cards for that?”

“Who the f…uck… knows?”

It was probably the most civil talk they had in the last week and Clarke tried to stop herself from reaching up and tearing his eyes out of his skull.

He turned to his men and lifted an eyebrow. “Just call in the boss and tell him to get someone with medical knowledge. I want her alive”.

“The hospital is closer, Emerson”, Clarke managed and missed the way his dark eyes snapped on her, narrowed with a question and a threat.

She didn’t miss the way his hand wrapped around her shoulder and pulled her back to meet her gaze. Clarke growled out a sound, which did not seem human –physical agony and blinding rage for this man and his fucking comrades filling her senses and for a moment, she almost launched up and wrapped her hands around his throat to squeeze the sweet life out of him.

A clanging sound stopped her from moving though and every person in the room turned their eyes up towards the ceiling, towards the metallic banging sound.

“What the hell is that?” Emerson was on his feet and barking at his soldiers, who started to move out of the room with quick sure steps. Another clang sounded and Clarke’s eyes seemed to clear, her darkening gaze finding Echo’s brown eyes from where she was pressed on the floor by two Reapers.

“Hey, Carl”, Clarke called out and Echo smiled back at her, just as running footsteps banged against the floor above their heads. “I think I’m going to head to the hospital after all”.

Emerson growled and strutted up to her and leaned down over her dropped body, taking a rough practical hold of her head to meet her gaze. “What does that mean? What the fuck do you know?”

Clarke winked at him just as an earthshaking _boom_ shook the building violently, dust and dirt and concrete starting to fall over and really now, Raven would be so fucking proud of her.

She gritted her teeth at the first slip of her mind; she hadn't thought of anyone outside of this building, about anyone who would raise any kind of emotion inside her chest other than manic rage and the overwhelming need to cause terror in these people. Just as she expected, the thought of Raven quickly swifted to the thought of Lexa and Clarke felt fear pooling in the pit of her stomach.

She coughed as smoke started to cloud the room and the Reapers had run outside and Echo's hands were around her waist and back and helping her on her aching feet and dragging her behind the people who had sprinted out of the door of the basement. Clarke coughed again and almost collapsed on the floor and her mind flashed with fear and the image of deep green eyes and Lexa's gentle nature and body, her quiet soft voice.

Tears gathered at the back of her bloodshot eyes and Clarke groaned as she pushed her feet harder on the concrete floor and leaned a bit more on Echo to be able to walk better. They didn't manage to get far thoug; Echo wheezed with coughs as smoke and ash filled the air and the heat was starting to become overwhelming. The brunette stumbled a few feet later, sending them crashing on the floor with groans and yelps of pain and Clarke was fucking terrified by now.

Hands wrapped around her shoulders and arms and dragged her forward and Clarke saw one of the men in the basement, his own face scarred and bleeding and covered with dust and grease. He helped her up and another man helped Echo and they managed to get to the stairs when a metalic pole fell from the ceiling, concrete and stone following it down. Clarke coughed and eyed the hole in the ceiling, the fire raging above them. If they didn't get out soon they'd be trapped inside and have the whole building collapse on them.

The fact that they were in the basement of the museum was funny because Clarke had worked there for a few long months and her boss had been a total asshole and she didn’t like working there, even if the museum was a nice place to be most of the times. Clarke thought of the stuff they had in exhibition and she felt a pang of regret as reality fell over her. She had blown up the museum or, well, that John Murphy had blown up the museum but it was her idea so she could take some credit.

Another explotion came from above them and the man helping Clarke lost his grip for a moment, another pair of hands coming to grasp at her and her mind somehow cleared at the fact that these people were helping instead of running out. She made a mental note to get their names, maybe hung out with them once they were all out and recovering and shit and then Murphy was there in front of her with his familiar scowl and she scowled back at him even if the son of a bitch fucking did it and had gotten them out. She was so damn proud of him and how far he had come in his life despite not knowing a single damn thing about his life.

Clarke was losing consciousness, fast, and the smoke was clouding her mind and burning her lungs and she had to cough again and the pain was enough this time to send her weakened body into a senselessness state -hovering between awarness and blankness.

“Fucking hell, Clarke, if you die, I will kill you, you bitch”.

She wanted to snarl at him and at his words but her mind dove further down this terrifying oblivion. Maybe Murphy was somehow right. Maybe they shouldn’t have blown up the floor they were held in. Or the one above them.

But hey, _give me liberty or give me death_ , right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I'm hitting a writing block, guys, I have written this chapter so many times, guys, I have a good damn plot with the Reapers and Wanheda in my mind but I don't know how the hell to write it down. I've writen some points and scenes and stuff but goddamn you guys I cannot make them work. And guys, I have a plot for Lexa's side as well but I cannooot write it either. Guyssss, I'm experiencing a writer's block and I am sad
> 
> *sigh* I will get over it *sigh*
> 
> I have turned to another long and abandoned story of mine for now, an Alicia Clark/Clarke Griffin story and an alternate season 6 where there is a multiverse and after s5 they travel through it and instead of landing in that s6 planet with the weird people they land on another Earth and the FTWD world? Is it good? I kinda like how it is turned out? Two looooooong parts because I can't commit with the FTWD for long because well... the show is just... a no for me for the time being. I hope the next season is better. I have written the first part and I'm working through the second and it is the slowest slow burn I have ever written and it makes me sad as well because I want them to be together in every universe and shit but Alicia Clark is a character that needs A LOT of work and she wouldn't just fall for Clarke who is SHOOK by this woman who looks like Lexa but IS NOT LEXA and there is too much pinning and angst and some soulmate thing that I am trying to fit in so they get a happy ending but soulmate thing is tricky so maybe they probably also won't????? Who knows too many stuff to write in that second part so if it takes too long to update this one, well, feel free to yell at me in the comments to get back to it.
> 
> So our baby is out of there and she's going to be FINE and get ready for some fluff and comfort and pure love from our other baby. Lexa's side of the story didn't really move forwards in these chapters I found them a bit too intense to have both of them going at the same time. Guys, I'm hitting a writer's block what do I do??
> 
> My American friends how are things over there? Media have completely shut up about it and we don't get many updates anymore. Tell me about the movement there I wanna know how it is going. Have a great day anyways, wear your masks and wash your hands and demand a better heath system; they can provide you with one they just choose not to, the sons of the goddamn capitalistic syste- the sons of a bitch I mean. Happy reading and stay safe!


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings; aftermath of torture, blood and injury, execution
> 
> I would call this chapter a filler chapter so we can get to the comfort and the cuteness and the fluff a bit naturally. BUT Wenheda is here, say hello kids. Also I'm drunk and alone at home while writting this and the next couple of chapters so you are welcome, this is going to be some ride.

The explosion rocked the entire city and had people ducking onto the floor, in their houses and in near buildings, it had a cloud of smoke rising up in the middle of the city. Rebels sprinted out of every base and safe house, their eyes wide with horror because it had been _months_ ever since military bombed right in the middle of a city, bombed a building that could hold people or items. The explosion had various patrol chiefs gathering up their teams to lead a search force to the place, flashlights been given around because the night was thick and it wouldn’t be smart to have torches and anymore fire near the crumbling building.

The explosion had Anya jolting from her place on the soft bed. “ _Raven Reyes!_ ”

“That wasn’t me! I'm literally right next to you!” Raven was sitting up as well, tugging on clothes and trying to find her damn prosthetic because she needed to be there to find out what the hell had so efficiently gone boom without her help. The mechanic’s mind raced with explanations of how it could have happened, of who could have done it, of what exactly had exploded.

The few follow up _booms_ had her thoughts settling that this was a building, stored with fuel or some kind of flammable gas, maybe even weapons. If it was weapons going boom then the patrol teams, surely rushing to site by now, should stay the fuck away.

Anya tossed her the handmade prosthetic and Raven quickly slipped it on, getting a crutch just for good measure because they needed to be there quick.

\---

“What the hell, Raven, you blew up the museum?!”

“It wasn’t me!”

Anya backed her up, “Octavia, it wasn’t Raven”.

“Well, it wasn’t fucking military either”.

Lexa looked scarier than Octavia, her coat unbuttoned, her eyes narrowed with rage and swollen with the lack of sleep and Raven hated that she was the one under this harsh glare. Their dear Commander looked like she had barely stopped to put on her boots before she rushed to site. “This place was _filled_ with stored items, Reyes”.

Raven felt her temper ready to hit red and she glared at the very Commander of the revolution. A deep part of her could be proud they thought she was responsible for such destruction but that was beside the point. “I didn’t blow up the museum, back off, all of you”.

Lexa nearly snarled as she turned, eyes scanning the gathering warriors to find Indra between them. She had put every item and exhibition from every other museum or gallery in the city and she had everyone talk about the place, thinking they wouldn’t waste any ammo to bomb seemingly unimportant artistic items. But, well, here she stood, in front of the collapsing building and she was fucking exhausted and angry because other than capitalism, the universe seemed to also test her patience.

“Get the patrol back in place”, Lexa snapped at the first chief she caught sight of. She posed as the superior chief between them; her identity hidden away and protected by Indra’s seemingly more advanced post as a general. “It can be a distraction from another attack”.

Anya grabbed a man and carefully advised him to get to the old school nearby, get a fire extinguisher bus. He did as told, readjusting his assault rifle on his shoulder and running in the darkness. Anya met Lexa’s eyes and nodded slowly at the Commander to let her know that some things were being handled already. Her cousin’s gaze did not soften as Anya had wished.

“There are people coming out!”

Heads snapped up and took in the sight of a woman gasping for air, her face beaten beyond recognition, her leg being dragged behind her body, nearly limp. Two rebels rushed forwards to pull her out of the flames and Anya looked at her cousin as she snapped orders right and left, getting people to _move goddamn it_ and get water pipes, go to the school to get more than one fire extinguishing bus, run to the hospital and call for medical help.

Anya rushed forwards as three more people stumbled out of the thick smoke, deep coughs wrecking their bodies. There was only one way for people to be in the old museum and Anya felt rage starting to build in her gut as she looked at the faces, as she took in the injuries under the thick layer of dust and smoke. She tried to get Lexa to look at her again and when the young woman finally did, Anya found the exact same thoughts in Lexa’s darkening gaze.

She turned her attention back down on the man she was holding and with the help of Octavia, they dragged him away and placed him on the concrete road. A team of rebels circled him right away, not too close, but still not far, weapons in position and ready to shoot if the order was given to them. Anya looked up at a woman already walking around the people, a camera in her hold, her dark narrowed eyes trying to recognize people. Anya thought the Coalition's own damn detectives should be more careful of the way they posed.

“Help! Help me!”

Lexa looked up from the woman’s heaving body she held, her hard eyes taking in the flames wrapping around a young man’s clothes, his face twisted with pain and terror as he stumbled, coughed, cried. Armed rebels immediately circled him, circled every single person coming out of the building. Indra’s eyes snapped to Lexa’s and the war general nodded swiftly –to inform the Commander her quiet orders were heard and enforced by their warriors.

The museum wasn’t used by the Coalition. Full stop. The museum was a warehouse and it hadn’t been opened in a very long time. The only way people were coming out of it now was because they were put in there by someone else, someone other than the rebel army and the coalition and the council. Anyone coming out could be their very enemy.

Lexa had to clench her hand in a fist to keep it from curling around her knife.

“There are more people inside”, the woman gasped on her feet, her eyes looking up and she was beaten, one of her shoulders desolated, one of her eyes swollen shut but Lexa didn’t give the order for someone to take her away to the hospital. “There are injured inside and –and Reapers”.

She had to close her eyes for a moment to keep herself calm.

A cry cut through the commotion and Lexa looked up, seeing Octavia breaking from the tight formations of the teams of rebels and rushing forwards, sinking on her knees in front of a pair that had just stumbled out of the building, grabbing at the limp woman who was carried by the guy. Lexa felt her legs give out at the sight of the dirty medical robe.

The guy holding Clarke slowly lowered her on the ground in a safe distance from the flames and Lexa barely kept herself from running, a shaky hand wrapping around her forearm to keep her up. Brown eyes snapped up at her as she approached and Lexa thought she saw the guy tensing at the sight of Lexa and Raven coming closer to them so fast.

“Back off”, he growled out, smoke making his voice heavy, and Lexa almost reached to Raven’s waist for the gun she was terrified of, just to shoot him down. “Back off, I don’t know you”.

“They’re fine, Murphy, shut up”, Octavia mumbled to him, pushing him back with a fist, her hands flying over Clarke’s body to check her injuries and her pulse and Lexa didn’t stop to wonder where they knew each other from.

Seeming like he wouldn’t say anything else, Lexa didn’t bother shooting him another glare. She lowered on her knees next to Clarke’s body and felt her heart pang against her chest at the sight of the cuts and the bruises forming on the blonde’s face, her heart clenching with grief and numbing relief. Lexa barely heard herself shouting for a doctor and some water, hands wiping away some of the ash covering her girl’s face, trying not to break at the sight of her bloody and swollen feet.

“The explosion was her dumb idea”, Murphy coughed and watched the three woman leaning over Clarke. He sighed, looking at the crowd for his own girl, scowling to hide his anxiety when he didn’t see Emori, his chest tightening with worry because he was held for a long while and many things could have happened.

Raven sobbed at the guy’s words, Octavia’s strong arms wrapping around her as they watched a very shaky Lexa trying to wake their friend up. They should be helping or trying to secure the place but they couldn’t move from their kneeling position. Every thought wiped themselves from their minds as Clarke’s breath cut lightly and then she exhaled, deep and hard, as her eyes cracked open.

Clarke didn’t know what was going on. Her head throbbed painfully and there was a weight settled on her chest and her lungs were on fire. Clarke needed air and maybe some cold water and some pressure on her head, on her nose. She coughed, gasping in a shallow breath as a flash of sharpened agony pierced right through her ribcage making her muscles tense just to make the whole thing worse. She groaned, a wet whimper, her chest tightening as she tried to hold back her coughs. She needed air.

“Clarke?”

She tried to focus against the pain slicing up her body all the way up from her feet and she tried to focus on the guiding voice, a part of her wondering how the hell Murphy got the caring tone through his grunts. Or maybe it wasn’t Murphy calling her name, it was a very beautiful woman leaning over her and Clarke took a very long second to recognize her best friend looking down at her with wide teary eyes.

She cracked a smirk, feeling her lip pulling and she was sure there was a cut there. “I blew up this fucked up place”, she mumbled and watched a shadow falling over her friend’s face.

Raven let out a sound which balanced in a very thin line between a laugh and a sob. She lowered her head and nodded and Clarke tried to smile because Raven was in pain and she needed to be comforted and this was Clarke’s job, it was Clarke the one picking Raven first from everyone, it was Clarke that wanted to ease this pain from her friend’s eyes.

“Please, you just came up with the plan”.

“Shut up, Murphy, it was my idea, I get the credit”.

A burst of sound –another explosion– reached her ears and Clarke jerked in surprise, making another whip of drilling anguish land on her side. She was suddenly smacked by the realization of the things happening around her, of the plan working out, of the people around her, the beautiful sky above her head. Her eyes blinked and looked up and a sob caught at the base of her throat.

Green eyes stared down at her, almost looking black in the darkness of the night, in the flames of the building burning behind them. Clarke felt her pain numb for a moment as her dazed mind focused on the way Lexa's arms were secured around her, holding her up to her chest, close enough to feel the woman's heavy breathing. Clarke went numb in Lexa's arms, staring up at her, awestruck, forgetting the agony of her body for the Commander's sake. Her very soul softened at the sight above her and she wanted to reach up, make sure she wasn't a hallucination.

“Lexa”.

“Clarke”.

“Lex, I… They…”

“Hey, hey, you are safe now”.

“Lexa… you… you are so beautiful”.

Lexa seemed taken aback like she didn’t know. _How could she not know?_ Clarke wondered, wanting to reach up and caress the woman’s face. “Clarke, what?”

Clarke smiled at the confused dark eyes. “I'm all about romance in the revolution. Did you forget?”

“This… This is not romantic, Clarke”.

“Sure is. Look at you gorgeously glowing in front of a burning building and shit”.

Raven let out a wet laugh, meeting Lexa’s disbelieved eyes. “ _Dios mío, idiota_ ”.

“I think they broke her, guys”, Octavia mumbled quietly, looking around for those medics. More and more people were been dragged out of the museum and teams were working to put out the flames.

“I never broke”. Clarke’s eyelids were dropping heavily. “I never told them anything”.

Lexa shuddered, lowering her head to press her forehead to Clarke’s, shuddering yet again when a trembling weak hand rose to curl around the back of her neck and hold her there. Clarke’s parted lips let out a whimper that Lexa quietly shushed, her hold tightening around the woman she held against her chest.

“Please, help. I need help!”

Clarke’s eyes snapped open.

Murphy was on his feet, seething and _sprinting_ across the open space.

Clarke lifted her head just in time to see him land a solid punch in Emerson’s familiar face; it had them both stumbling by the force. A second later, Echo appeared out of nowhere and crushed straight on the Reaper, sending him on the ground with an angered battle cry. The flames roared behind them as the rebels’ attention shifted away from the task of putting them out to inspect the commotion.

“Help me up”.

“You shouldn’t…”

“Lexa, please, I… help me sit up”.

Murphy managed to catch Echo’s arm before it fell back down for another fatal hit and was only able to pull her away, enough to deliver a kick of his own, face twisted with something close to delirious fury. He barely heard a steeled voice coming from behind him, calling his name and he numbly tore his eyes away from the monster on the ground to find the person addressing him. He caught sight of Clarke sat up, the now familiar blue eyes filled with a known ironed outrage, the blonde’s hand reaching to the waist of a woman next to her, to her belt and a holster there.

At the sight of the handgun in the trembling hold, he leaned down and grabbed the groaning man, shaking off the hands trying to stop him. He barely heard Echo keep everyone back, his ears toned to Emerson lying on his feet.

“Clarke…”

Clarke shushed them with a tone none of them had heard before.

Lexa gulped as she kept the woman up, a careful hand placed on her back to keep her weight, her eyes travelling from the gun in Clarke’s hold to Octavia and Raven’s frozen gazes. The man called Murphy dragged someone on the floor with no remorse in his face and a graceful phantom smile spread on Clarke’s split lips, the blue eyes never losing their petrifying look.

Murphy pulled Emerson by the hair in front of Clarke, forcing him to kneel in front of the blonde woman, smirking at the sight of shock covering his features at the sight of the icy blue eyes looking straight through his soul. It took Emerson a moment to realize there was no way out of this, out of his death and he sighed, long and quiet, forcing a grave smirk on his mouth.

“Clarke. Doll, I’m glad you will be the one doing the honors after all”.

She met his eyes and felt her throat tightening with the need to destroy, to wreck, to tear this man in front of her into pieces of himself… The handgun felt too heavy and cold in her hand but she still lifted it, leaning forwards to press some of its weight on his forehead, watching the shallow inhale he took in.

Their eyes met again. “I think you will be my proudest job, doll. Emerson is my real name by the way; I want it to haunt you. Search my family, tell them you were the one that put a bullet in me. They will tell my brothers. I want them to tear you apart for me. Personally you, doll”.

Clarke smiled at him, seeing a shudder crushing his spine. “Fuck off, Emerson”.

She allowed him some time to smile back at her before she pulled the trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found the cure to the writer's block; wine. A lot of it. This is me drunk writting the next four (?) chapters. I wrote four chapters. Chapter 20 is like soooo long and cute, I hate you'll have to wait for it. (like three times the usual chapters... you're going to have to excuse its length)
> 
> There is a very dirty joke in there somewhere but THAT IS NOT the point. The point is that I fucking love your love, okay? The feedback makes me so happy, you guys, I love you all, keep it coming.
> 
> Also, Wenheda is HERE, how are we feeling about that? I feel great; we will see more of Wenheda/Reapers and shit and GUYS this is not a light story as enstablished before, the war is still going, everything will be FINE in the end (whenever that is) but the ride is a bit harsh so... yeah. Just a heads up. But you may have some fluff for a while because of the past three updates.
> 
> There is one more reason for you to excuse any mistakes in this chapter, folks, it wasn't an easy task writting after the third glass but the words just kept coming. Kudos to me for going this long!
> 
> FUN FACT; i had a storyline for emerson and i wasn't going to kill him but i did a preview to the previous chapters and, my god, honestly fuck this guy, served him right
> 
> Don't drink too much, be safe, wear your masks and shit, study for your college or school or whatever, wash your hands. Have a beautiful day/night


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings; aftermath of torture, execution, blood and injury
> 
> HERE IS THE BEGINNING OF THE FLUFF.

“How is she?”

“Going for the winning question, aren’t you, Anya?”

Lexa sighed next to Raven, her eyes rolling away from her cousin to look back up at the ceiling. The kick of Octavia’s gun going off had Clarke’s body jerking back by its force, a wet cry escaping her mouth with a bit of blood. The medics were there just in time to get to the blonde, keeping her calm and alive to get her to the hospital. A couple of ribs had been cracked and her swollen feet were a serious issue. The other injuries didn’t need much attention but Jackson didn’t like the coughs of blood.

Indra had taken one look at Lexa standing with bloodied clothes and watching Clarke been pulled on a stretcher and had dared to approach her Commander to keep her on track because there was a growing group of injured people in front of them, half of them being unknown Reapers, posing us captive rebels. Lexa had nodded numbly and had sent Octavia and Raven with Clarke to the hospital and turned to inspect the scene in front of her.

Emerson’s body still lied on Murphy’s feet and Lexa didn’t hesitate to nod at him to come closer because if Clarke trusted him, then so did she. He didn’t talk at first, his steeled dark eyes challenging Lexa to get someone to find his girlfriend for him or he wouldn’t do shit for someone he didn’t know. Lexa had to physically stop Indra from launching to him. The Commander wordlessly looked at Indra, the chief sighed, sent a warrior to find the woman he asked for. They shifted then, the commanding aura vanishing from around Lexa as she let her shoulder fall, hiding her superior rank from the people around them. To the warriors around, she was a simple chief and nothing more and Indra posed as her leader.

“Point them out, Murphy”.

“I’m not one to point”.

“This is our enemy”.

“I’m not pointing shit. We will walk and I will tell you”.

They did and Lexa nodded at rebels to grab the men and women Murphy told her to, a woman named Echo pulling a face as they stared at one another for a long time. He didn’t tell Lexa anything about her but she still nodded, not liking his hesitation, not liking the threat in this woman’s eyes. Her curses of her not being a Reaper sounded exactly like the Reapers’ own poor excuses. Lexa believed her but she still mumbled quietly to Indra to handle her so they knew what she had told them.

The sky had only started to turn grey as the sun slowly picked in the horizon when Lexa was sure they had everyone and finally nodded to Indra to give the order for the execution. She kept a still face at the gunshots, her muscles tight at the sound of the gunshots, her gut clenching and her stomach rolling, her eyes on the bodies dropping, on Indra, who approached them and gave the final shot with her pistol, to make sure none of them was alive. She shrugged off Anya’s comforting hand and slowly turned, an order coming out of her mouth for her cousin to organize a small team to gather whatever could be saved from the remains of the museum.

She barely spared a glance at Murphy collapsing in the arms of a shorter woman, a sob ripping out of his chest as they both melted. Gustus placed his big hand on her shoulder as he appeared next to her and she carefully shrugged him off as well, not wanting the warmth they provided.

The hospital was alive when she finally walked in, shivering by the cold. She stood for a long moment, taking in the people in the front waiting room, their grave faces. She sighed, rolled her shoulders and walked farther inside, becoming one with them and their grief. She hid away her commanding posture and confidence. She was just a girl in this hospital, waiting to hear news about an injured loved one.

Bellamy was the first person she saw, the guy walking out of the cafeteria with paper cups in his hold, his assault rifle on his shoulder and a gun in his hip. Lexa hated the way the guns looked so right around the people, like they were an extension of their bodies. Not much she could do though. It’d take many years and probably another commander to decide they didn’t need the weapons anymore.

“Blake!”

“Lexa, you are here”.

“I kind of got held up”.

“It is fine, come on, she hasn’t woken up from the surgery”.

She was surprised to find Ryder sitting with Raven and Octavia, a hand over his side, soft warm clothes wrapped around him, the bruises on his face just now starting to heal. He offered a gentle smile to her as she approached, Gustus coming out of the shadows to stand near his friend. It was how she found herself staring at the ceiling, the plastic chair digging in her shoulder blades uncomfortably. Anya had walked closer, smelling like smoke and gunpowder, her tongue barely holding itself from giving a report to Lexa. She appreciated the self-control Anya had; she didn’t think she could focus on anything right now.

Lexa sighed heavily, letting her body slack on the plastic chair. Her muscles ached by the lack of sleep and the loss of the adrenaline rush which had fueled her body at the sound of the explosion. She was exhausted and grief griped at her throat, not letting her relax completely, not letting her take in that Clarke was alive and well.

Hurt but alive.

Clarke’s scarred face stayed in her mind, the blood covering her wrecked feet. She couldn’t take out of her head the fact that it’d been ten long days since the Reapers took her girlfriend and Lexa did absolutely nothing. She was a Commander and she did _nothing_ to find her sooner. Clarke was held in the city, _Jesus Christ_ , she was held right underneath her goddamned nose and Lexa did nothing.

A sob caught at the throat and she chocked on it, her body shaking, growing heavy.

Lexa sighed at the familiar deep pull in her chest, the feeling of the weird déjà vu. It made her want to vomit; the familiarity of this moment, the familiarity of the failure Lexa felt in her gut as she thought of Clarke and the way she let the blonde down. A shudder passed down her back and she closed her eyes, hating this, hating the way it came with the worst possible things that could happen. She hated how _right_ it felt to have failed Clarke somehow.

She always had this familiarity around specific people and things and Lexa had never understood it despite it being a part of her. It was slicing her soul in half and crazing her mind at how _right_ those moments felt. It was right there when Costia first smiled at her and it was right there when Costia broke her neck on the floor of the factory and the life slipped from her eyes. It was right there when Gustus stood in front of her body to protect her from a cop’s baton. It was there when Anya gave her a swift advice. The familiarity and rightness was right there when the bullet found her gut.

It was here as Lexa felt like she had failed Clarke. It was here with the desperation clinching in her gut because what had she done, why didn’t she try harder, why the hell did she let this happen, why the hell did she let something like this touch Clarke – _Clarke,_ of all people– and hurt her so much?

Another sob caught in her throat, forming a scratching knot there and she gulped, making it worse. Lexa slowly lowered her face in her palms.

Finally, _finally_ , Jackson approached them and he had a soft smile on his lips and Lexa took in a very deep breath to keep her body steady. It had been hours since she had walked in the hospital and sunlight was spilling through the building to light up the halls. She was the only one awake; Octavia and Lincoln were curled up on the floor together, Raven and Bellamy wrapped around in each other on the chairs next to her, Raven’s hand clutching Anya’s, her hold tight even in her sleep.

“Lexa, she is asking for you”.

She shuddered and trembled and huffed out a deep exhale. “How is she?”

“She will be okay, her body will heal”. A huge weight settled on her shoulders at the unspoken words. Jackson saw and cleared his throat, kept talking. “Four of her ribs are cracked, on the left side. She has a concussion and is still very dazed but aware of where she is and what happened. Her feet were a very serious issue though I doubt she will be able to stand for a couple of weeks”.

“Has she said anything of the time in the museum?”

“No”, Jackson said slowly.

Lexa nodded, her hands fiddling with the edge of her coat. “Can I see her?”

“Yes, she wants to see you. I will wake the others to tell them, but I cannot let them in and you” –Jackson lifted an eyebrow– “don’t pressure her too much. The less she talks at the moment the better. She is not in a good shape physically and mentally. I am only letting you in because she asked”.

Lexa nodded again and then one more time before standing, getting to the door. She allowed her body to shudder, once, before she pulled her shoulders back and slowly opened the door, stepping inside very quietly. The clouded blue eyes fell on her very slowly and Lexa couldn’t help but shudder again, talking in the deep cuts and vivid bruises on Clarke’s skin.

“Lexa”.

Clarke’s voice was as hoarse as it was in the mornings when she woke up groaning at the small alarm clock on her nightstand. Her gaze was fogged, her orbs moving very slowly as they turned on Lexa, looking pained, clouded by the painkillers in her body.

She was hooked up on a machine beeping steadily and quietly along her heartbeat, a bag of serum hanging near her bed. A blanket covered her body up to her chin, a thin white sheet folded just over the top side. She didn’t look cold.

“Hey”. Lexa couldn’t help but smile, the weight slowly lifting off her shoulders at the tired smile pulling at Clarke’s split lips. She walked closer slowly, taking the blonde’s bandaged hand as it curled tiredly towards her. “You look awful, my love”.

Clarke looked confused for a moment, almost making Lexa regret the words and the playful tone, but then the smile on her lips widened lightly and one of her eyebrow twisting lightly, as if it tried to be lifted. “And you obviously spent some time with O and Raven”.

“Not as much as Anya”, Lexa said and slowly started to lower herself on the chair near Clarke’s bed.

A groan of protest had her freezing and her eyes widened as they tried to find the source of the discomfort. “I want you close”, the raspy voice said and Lexa sighed as she shook her head, lifting her free hand to carefully trace the skin of her girlfriend’s forehead.

“I don’t want to hurt you”.

“You won’t”.

“Are you sure?”

“I need you closer, Lexa”.

Lexa nodded slowly, looking at the blankets and hesitating, not knowing if it’d hurt Clarke if she sat on them and pulled them farther down against her body. Clarke’s plan wasn’t even that though, she very carefully shifted to the side and pulled at the blanket with her free hand, barely making it move but making her intention clear. A knot gripped in Lexa’s throat as she pulled the covers away to sit on the mattress for a moment, carefully kicking off her boots and taking off her coat.

Clarke sighed shallowly as Lexa carefully pressed against her right side, not touching too much or too hard or too close. “You are cold”, Clarke mumbled and immediately moved to clench her hand around Lexa’s fingers to keep her from pulling away. “You don’t need to be so careful”.

“Yes, I do”.

“I know”.

The blonde turned her sore neck on the arm that had so carefully snaked under it to be her official pillow for the night and she pressed her nose in Lexa’s neck, inhaling her familiar scent. She was confused for a moment as to why the hell Lexa was still in her cold clothes before remembering they were in the hospital and that she was hurt badly. The logical part of her weakened brain thanked the painkillers filling her blood despite the confusion they caused. She always hated the confusion.

“You smell good”.

Lexa chuckled softly, the vibration warming something very cold in Clarke’s chest. It was an icy weight settled there and Clarke gulped as a blurry image flashed behind her eyes; an image of a gun going off against a man’s head and cracking the skull and sending his brains flying out behind him.

Clarke chocked lightly as she inhaled deeper than her hurt body could handle. She groaned around her breath but relaxed at the cooing sound coming from the warm body next to her. Her fingers reached up to pull the warmth closer but they found chilly fabric making another chocked breath catch at her scratchy throat as her mind reeled to find some explanation for the different temperatures.

“Go back to sleep, Clarke”.

“They don’t know about you”, Clarke whispered, because this was important. “They asked about the Coalition and the usual things you’d expect but they don’t know about us. I think they think I am a member of the Council and I… I have a guard? What is… What is that about?”

Lexa gulped, watching pain and confusion dancing around Clarke’s face, her eyelids dropping every couple of seconds, the words slurring together.

“Go back to sleep, my love. We will talk about everything later”.

Lexa’s voice was quiet, soothing. Clarke’s head lolled to the side on the strong arm under her head and she paused as the flash of the tattoo there passed by her mind. She gritted her teeth as her heart thumped up to her head. She tried to make the twisting image go away and she pressed closer, ignoring the aching feeling on her left side. She wanted her mind to stop rolling with half thoughts.

Lexa watched dazed blue eyes flicking up to her and she leaned forwards to press a breathless kiss on Clarke’s warm forehead. A whimper came from the woman next to her and she pulled back to look down again, finding a desperate need in the blue orbs. “Kiss me properly”.

The brunette eyed the split lips but another whimper, half frustrated, half wanting, had her leaning down slowly, staining her neck to brush her lips to Clarke’s, gladly taking in the soft sigh of relief escaping Clarke. Lexa stayed as still as she could, the lips against hers setting a gentle pace and movement, feeling and kissing very, very softly. She inhaled the whimpers and slowly brought her hands up to caress Clarke’s bruised cheek with her fingertips.

Lexa was deeply in love with this woman. Clarke was kissing her as if she was in love with her as well. Tears gathered behind her eyes but she didn’t let them out. She did not let them out until Clarke sighed against her and her body slacked, face turned in her neck, warm puffs of air hitting her skin.

Lexa sobbed very softly against her, pressing her free hand to her own chest to keep it from heaving too much. In her sleep, Clarke’s hand reached out and took a hold of her wrist, fingertips caressing mindless and uneven soothing patterns up until Lexa’s breathing calmed. She felt her eyes grow heavy.

Clarke scooted closer and pressed her nose on the cold skin of Lexa’s neck, sighing quietly in her heavy sleep. Lexa managed to press one more kiss on her forehead before she let herself drift off as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is turning out to be loooong. I wasn't prepared but what the hell i enjoy it.
> 
> My soulmate thingy is turning a bit angsty because i have in my mind that if they feel comfortable around one another then they'd feel comfortable with the bad things happening as well because it makes sense, right?
> 
> Like Lexa and the gunshot and Costia and now this feeling that she thinks she let Clarke down just like in Mt. Weather? No? Am I the only one who thought that about the soulmate thingy??? Maybe I like the angst of everything. Who knows.
> 
> Happy reading!


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning; terrorism, blood and injury, minor character death, aftermath of torture

_Raven thought the day would roll just like every other day. Mrs. Griffin would drop her off in the mall after school, she’d say goodbye to Clarke and Bellamy and she’d get to her mom’s shop. Her mom would smile at her behind the tall counter, some grease and oil covering her cheek and Finn would rush to her with his smile and joyful laugh. They would get to the back and Finn would have his books already opened but he would have waited for her._

_Actually, when her mom nodded to the ice cream shop that had just opened across the wide space on the ground level of the mall, Raven had thought the day was the best day in that month._

She hadn’t had ice cream since then. The coldness of it sent a rush of terror straight to her brain, it had her muscles locking up impossibly tight to the point of her whole body freezing for a couple of long breathless moments.

 _Raven saw a man as they got out of the new ice-cream shop. She had two cones in her hold, one strawberry for her mom, cookies for Raven. Finn was laughing about something that had happened at school but she didn’t listen as she caught sight of this man standing so very still in the middle of the crowd, only a few feet away from them. There was something_ weird _about his earpiece and his suit and her fifteen year old mind took a couple of seconds to get everything down._

_He was tall and pale and his brown hair was sticking on his forehead with sweat. He wore grey pants and a greyer jacket suit and a nicely ironed white shirt. Raven’s feet slowed a bit as she took in the odd way the shirt was jugging out here and there as if it was wrapped around something hidden under, like a thick vest, like boxed devices, even the thick wires were visible against the fabric._

_His hands hang loosely on the sides and he had a phone clutched in one. The man’s mouth was moving as if he was praying._

_There was no warning sign._

_His finger moved over the bright screen of the phone he was holding and then, a flash of white light was the last thing Raven saw._

_Raven woke up in the hospital three weeks later._

_Her throat was scratchy and dry and she wanted some water, her dazed mind looking around for a glass or a bottle, finding pale bare walls and simple white furniture._

_She was met blue eyes instead of some water and something in her chest cracked at the sight of the dull cloud that had filled her best friend’s gaze as it stared at nothing. It had been a very long time and it had taken a lot of work from Raven’s part to have some_ life _shine back in Clarke. But here they were yet again; the empty look seemed to be stuck there. It looked as if Jake had died yesterday._

_“Clarke”._

_Blue orbs snapped, fear and relief filling them. A desperate hand shot out to clutch at Raven’s numb one, where it rested on cold unmoving sheets._

_“Oh God, Raven”, Clarke brokenly whispered and sobbed and Raven’s chest tightened as she gripped at the girl’s hand with confusion. “You’re awake… You are awake…”_

_“Is there any water?”_

_“Yeah, yeah, sorry, let me get you some”._

_Clarke reached across from her, shaking tiny hands gripping around for a glass and a bottle, pouring some there. Puffy red eyes turned to Raven as she slowly leaned up in an elbow and let Clarke help her drink a couple of gulps of the cool liquid. Her mind started to clear right away._

_“What happened?”_

_A tear escaped Clarke’s eyes. Raven felt her gut dropping._

_“There was a bomb. You had been in a coma for the last three weeks”._

_“_ What _?!”_

_“There… there was a bomb… c-close to you”._

_“Like… like a terrorist attack?”_

_“I… I don’t… that’s what they are saying in the news but…”_

_“Finn?” she whispered, watching Clarke shudder violently, the younger girl’s knees slightly bending. Clarke had to take a seat again and Raven hesitated because no, no, no, there was no way._

_“I’m so sorry, Raven”, Clarke sobbed and Raven felt the words stuck in her throat, she felt her stomach rolling dangerously in her belly. Raven started to scoot back so she could sit up and she frowned lightly at the numb feeling of her leg, her gaze falling in the weird way the sheet fell on the… nothing. There was nothing under the sheet just below one of her knees._

_“Clarke…”_

_Clarke followed her horrified gaze and another sob ripped itself from her chest._

\---

Clarke blinked at the sound of urgent knocking on the door. She tensed, placed her palm on the forearm of the arm wrapped over her chest, tapped her finger on the muscle. Lexa exhaled heavily at the side of her neck, slightly shifted closer.

“Can you get it?” Clarke whispered, blinking again and turning slightly to force Lexa awake. The woman’s face adorably cringed but her hand cupping Clarke’s right boob lazily moved away. Clarke smiled at the way Lexa scooted up in a sitting position, her eyes never opening the whole time.

Lexa’s voice was cracking under the weight of sleep. “Fuck, it is early”, she mumbled and Clarke could only watch in adoration the way she rubbed her eyes with the back of her hands, the way she had to take a moment to simply _sit_ on the mattress trying to realize it was time to wake up.

“ _Griffin, I know you are awake by now!_ ” Clarke groaned at Raven’s muffled voice. A hand snaked out of the thick double blanket, taking a hold of Lexa’s hoodie to keep her next to her. If it was serious, Raven would have already been in the apartment.

“She will go away”, she mumbled, eyes closing again, her mind peacefully numbing.

“ _Griffin, I swear to God–_ “

“She is going nowhere, Clarke”, Lexa whined, pressing a hand on her forehead and Clarke was seriously starting to worry about her girlfriend’s constant headaches. Her hand tightened around the red fabric of the hoodie Lexa had claimed as her own and pulled Lexa back down.

Lexa smiled softly as she lowered, leaning carefully over Clarke, careful not to touch her torso. Clarke could feel some crumps on her muscles from sleeping on her back through the whole night but she ignored them in favor of Lexa’s lips as they met hers in a slow good morning kiss.

“ _I am breaking this door down, Clarke_ ”.

“Shit”, the blonde was awake now because Raven was very capable of doing so. “She has done it before in college and sounds like she will do it again”.

Lexa seemed to have the same thoughts as, by the time the last word slipped from Clarke’s mouth, she was across the small apartment and unlocking the door with a shaky hand, pulling it wide open to glare at the mechanic. Raven froze at the sight of Lexa standing there half naked before a wide grin blasted across her face.

“Well, damn, _Commander_ , look at that body, how the hell did Clarke score you?”

“Fuck you and your sexist comments. I have game!”

“Even the floor is laughing at you, Clarke, look at it”.

“Fuck you, Raven”.

“What time is it, Raven?” Lexa didn’t really have the energy to deal with the two best friends at the moment, her body slacking against the opened door, tired legs barely keeping her up.

The mechanic raised a bag and grinned at her commander, the plastic shuffling and the scent of something backed and delicious filling the room. “I brought breakfast”.

Clarke was awake, sitting on the edge of the mattress, feet touching the floor lightly. She had serious trouble walking; the skin was still red and way too sensitive, the thin muscle on the underside being bruised and the swollen tissue only now starting to ease. Then again, her ribs were an issue as well, healing –steadily but painfully at the same time, stopping her from moving too much and too fast.

The real problem was her stomach though. “Bring it here”, Clarke whined, blissfully watching her best friend wink at Lexa and walking into the apartment, smart eyes looking around for anything out of place. The books were in their usual piles on the floor but the chair by the narrow desk was missing and the familiar drawings were not on the wall above it. The blue curtain was gone as well, the balcony door shut from the outside with the heavy metallic shutter. The mattress of the bed was on the floor rather than being held up by the previous bedframe. The ugly and tiny bedside table was nowhere to be seen.

The room looked bare and vast despite its small size and Raven didn’t like it.

“What did you bring?”

Clarke’s feet were in fluffy orange socks and they were as ugly as the feeling in the mechanic’s chest. Raven buried it and forced a bright smile on her face, approaching Clarke and searching her eyes for any hints of the emptiness she loathed. There was something off in her friend’s gaze, something slow and new but Raven didn’t let her mind comment on it just yet.

“Tea, chicken pie and some bad looking apples. Is it apple season?”

“Yes”, Lexa replied as she walked out of the bathroom, a pair of sweatpants on, hair being a mess. She wiped her reddened eyes with a wet hand and Clarke softened at the sight of exhaustion. The Commander had been constantly in and out of Clarke’s apartment, torn in half by trying to be in secret Council meetings and by Clarke’s side as much as possible. Clarke didn’t like it, but she had backed down when Lexa’s only reply was a flyer of the communist party that wrote of the victories in various battles across the whole country.

_“I can multitask, Clarke”._

_“You are going to collapse”._

_“I’m fine”._

_“You are a stubborn shit, do you know that?”_

_Lexa’s smile lacked the usual mischief but it was warm and her kiss was careful._

_“I am not going to break, Lexa. I know you have important things to do”._

_“You are the only important thing I want to do”._

_Clarke laughed, happy and light, and groaned as pain shot up from her hurt side and Lexa’s grin was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. They both smiled into the kiss._

_“I have cracked ribs, stop making me laugh, damn you”._

_“Not a sacrifice I am willing to make, Clarke”._

Clarke slowly slid on the floor from the mattress, pulling a face when Raven dropped the plastic bag on her lap and gripped at the shutter’s handle, sliding it open to let sunlight spill inside the apartment. Clarke’s frustration at the sudden change eased at the sight of Lexa’s rapid blinking, a small smile pulling at Clarke’s lips and a teasing comment setting in her tongue. The way Lexa stood unbalanced kept it from being voiced.

Raven dropped on the floor next to Clarke, offering a paper cup of tea to her. But instead of joining them, Lexa slowly laid back down on the bed, shaking her head at Raven’s extended hand that offered another cup. “Wake me up if there is anything important”, she mumbled in the pillow, falling back asleep right away. Clarke could not stop her hand as it reached out and pushed away from Lexa’s face the wild dark locks of hair.

“Shit, Griffin, you are head over heels”, Raven whispered behind a mouthful of pie.

“She’s exhausted all the time”, Clarke whispered back, a frown settling on her face.

“She’s fine. Or better than before at least”. Clarke turned her eyes on her friend, finding sorrow in her eyes. “She was a mess”.

“I know”.

Muscles tensed, blue eyes sharpened and Clarke scooted back, pulling a pillow to her chest as she couldn’t bend her legs up, her feet burning in the socks and not able to touch the floor just yet without setting a flash of pain and shock in her brain. She did not want to talk about her time in the basement but she knew she probably should. It wasn’t something they could ignore anymore.

“Hey”.

Raven always seemed able to read her mind.

Clarke didn’t let her speak. “We are both hurting”, she said, closing her eyes at the sight of grief in Raven’s eyes. “I’m telling her she doesn’t need to be around all the time but I need her, Ray, I need her with me or everything comes rushing back”.

Raven’s hand was in hers. There was understanding in her brown eyes. Real and pure _understanding_ that did not ease the pain in Clarke’s chest. “I know”, Raven said and Clarke hated it because she remembered being fifteen and remembered her mother calling from the hospital, telling her of Raven and Finn, Finn, Finn, Finn.

She shuddered, rolled her shoulders to ease it. Clarke could remember the boy’s kind brown eyes, his full laughter, the joy he brought to their group of friends. She could remember the loss of him, Raven’s pained eyes, the desperation of their shared grief and pain of being two instead of three. Clarke felt bile raise to the back of her throat; they had been inseparable –the three of them. A part of her was glad he wasn’t here to witness what had happened to them.

A sob caught in her throat and she only barely kept it there, panicked eyes flying to Lexa peacefully sleeping on her bed. Raven was there though, her arms were there, and Clarke hid her face in the fabric of Raven’s hoodie, swallowing the sounds of her cries. The only productive thing she was doing these days was cry. It eased the pain, it let it out, but it didn’t ease the memories.

“I killed someone, Ray. I _wanted_ to kill him. I think of putting the gun in his head and I want to do it again. I want to find the rest of his people and put them in the ground with him. Jesus, what have they done to me?”

Raven tightened her hold and the metal of her prosthetic dug into Clarke’s skin but she didn’t mind. It distracted her for a split second to breathe in and out, her mind catching the rhythm of her friend’s own breathing and forcing her lungs to follow.

“Welcome to the dark side, Clarkey”, Raven said and it was supposed to sound soft and gentle but it came with a broken sob of her own and Raven lowered her face in blonde hair to quietened her own pain from the woman sleeping next to them. “We are all here with you”.

“Fuck, Raven”, Clarke mumbled on the fabric of her friend’s sweater, muffling the sound of her tears. She wanted to reach over and curl right next to Lexa, close her eyes and listen to her breathe, listen to her snore quietly and huffing in her sleep.

Raven got a hold of herself first and she slowly pulled back, taking her friend’s face in her hands, making their eyes meet. “Remember Bell? A few days after the declaring? He got into patrol first and Pike found out. Do you remember?”

She did. Clarke remembered Octavia calling, her voice cracking, the tone higher than normal. She had rushed to the school Bellamy worked, the alley empty of the usual presence of children running around. The city was a mess of gunshots and screaming and blood drying on concrete and Clarke had never worked so much in her life, had never been so terrified of shouts sounding in the street below her balcony.

_The school stood dark and empty and haunted. Octavia was standing in the alley next to it, her eyes wide and so wild and she gripped at her pistol like her life depended on it. She nearly collapsed when she saw Clarke approaching, the same wild look in the blue eyes, and Octavia’s hand was shaking when she gripped at her and pulled her to the side, deeper in the alley, catching her when Clarke stumbled._

_Bellamy was leaning over a body, a body with a familiar face and Clarke barely kept herself from throwing up because it was Pike but his skull was cracked and blood was spilled on the ground behind it. Her old high school teacher was lying in front of her feet, unmoving and wrecked and Bellamy was sobbing, a rifle thrown on the ground away from him._

_“H-He…” Octavia dropped on her knees next to her brother but didn’t move to touch him. Clarke gulped at the sight of a bruise forming on Octavia’s jawline and Clarke shuddered when helpless eyes looked up at her._

_“I cannot move him”, Octavia chocked and Clarke was walking closer, ignoring the body of her old teacher and sinking on the ground in front of Bellamy, hiding Pike from his line of sight. “Pike found out Bellamy had gotten in the Coalition’s patrol, called him here. I don’t know what h-happened but Pike had this on his pocket”._

_Clarke’s stomach rolled at the sight of the badge and she closed her eyes because how the hell was this possible. Why the hell had Pike a badge with a swastika printed on it? Clarke’s heart pounded in her chest and she had to take in a few deep breaths because she didn’t understand, she really didn’t._

_Bellamy, Bellamy, Bellamy._

_She turned to him, only to find tortured brown eyes looking at her and she lost herself in his gaze, bringing her hands up to cup his familiar face. “Hey, Bell, I’m here, you’re okay”._

_“I… Clarke… Clarke…”_

_“I know”._

_She didn’t. She knew nothing._

_“I’m here. We need to get you home”._

_“Octavia”, he whispered, blinked, cracked a bit more. “I hit Octavia”._

_“Hey, big brother, look at me”, Octavia took his hand and met his eyes. “I’m fine”._

_Shouts were coming from somewhere close and they needed to leave and Bellamy wasn’t moving. “Come on. We need to go home. We got you, Bell”._

Clarke sighed against Raven, letting herself be held. Her hand fell on her friend’s leg, fingers expertly massaging the hurting muscles just above the handmade prosthetic. They all had battle scars –physical and mental. Clarke was tired of pushing on and it scared her, because this was what she always did. She pushed on and pushed on and pushed on and now she didn’t want to anymore.

She closed her eyes as Raven tangled her fingers in her hair, loosening the knots as gently as she could manage. Raven watched the sunlight spill inside the apartment, Clarke stayed put against Raven’s shoulder, her mind dully empty, her skin crawling lightly as feelings and thoughts and emotions spiraled inside her body without her mind registering them.

“I feel numb, Ray”.

Raven’s tone was soft. “It’s not the first time you feel numb, Clarke”.

“It has been a long time since then and my dad–” she chocked on the word.

“Hey”, Raven pulled back to meet her eyes. “Jake would be proud of you. He would”.

“No. I killed someone in cold blood”.

“Emerson had it coming, Clarke”.

“He… He broke so many people. He broke me”.

Raven’s grip tightened. Her smile was heavy but it shinned. “Lucky you, I am good at fixing up broken things and making them better”.

Clarke chuckled and hope flickered in her chest. Her hands framed Raven’s face and she brought her friend down slowly, placing a long kiss on the brunette’s forehead. “You better make me awesome”.

“You bet your sweet gorgeous ass I will”.

\---

Lexa leaned against Clarke for support and warmth, aware not to put too much of her body weight on the blonde woman. Clarke seemed more than glad to hold her close though; bloodshot eyes were looking over the people crowding the entrance of the Cathedral, her thoughts –usually wild– were peacefully swimming in the waves of sounds coming from the gathered people.

Octavia had literally dragged them out of bed and into the cold city just to get to this general meeting and a part of Clarke was ecstatic to be out of the house again.

The bigger part wanted to stay under the blankets, wrapped around Lexa and listen to her talk about anything and everything.

They had been doing that a lot lately, Clarke thought, feeling Lexa doze against her shoulder, her lean body completely slacked against her. She couldn’t help but turn her head to press a long kiss on top of the wavy brown hair, her heart panging a bit irregular in her chest when the commander of the damn revolution blissfully whined.

Clarke sighed quietly, closing her own eyes against the evening sunlight spilling from windows, fighting the way her body wished to slack further down the wooden bench like Lexa because someone had to keep them up from slipping on the hard floor. She smiled at the thought, her hand on Lexa’s thigh tightening its hold lightly, her thumb rubbing on the thick fabric of her grey sweatpants.

The first speaker was on the front steps of the wide room, just in front of the altar, and the talking got quieter as people turned to listen. Nyko was tall and muscular, a fighter, a member of the Coalition, trusted by the people around. Paramedic, Clarke knew him once from around the hospital but, once the war had been decided, he’d not stepped back, too busy with this job to be inside an ambulance that run low on gas and fuel most of the time.

He kept his speech short, as always, more like a report of what had happened since the last meeting, a list of battles and places and fallen rebels that Clarke forced her mind to remember. She had gotten a vague image from Lexa but never in detail and extent –her girlfriend having drawn an unspoken line between her role in this war and their relationship.

Texas was an issue the Coalition was dealing with, the state fallen in its own civil war between the people and the rebels. Clarke felt Lexa clench her jaw lightly against her shoulder, fully awake and listening to Nyko talk. Clarke placed another kiss on the top of her head, trying to ease the tension that had settled on the previously relaxed body. It didn’t work and Clarke sighed as Lexa’s leg started to bounce lightly as well.

A member of a communist party stood on the steps next, his voice forceful and iron and captivating. He gave one more report, this one about Europe, and the people were leaning forward and holding their breath as he informed them of a series of other countries being into their own civil wars, having followed America’s lead. The most beautiful seemed to be the one of the people of Turkey, who used their faith and religion to tear down any hints of fascism appearing on their land. When their neighbor country was hostile toward them, they tore down the walls of racism with selflessness and solidarity. Six months later, the war raging against their oppressors and the borders between Greece and Turkey had stopped being a thing. There was even a banner of the truce between the two countries. It was beautiful and Lexa had stopped tensing as she listened to the man talk.

Clarke felt her eyes widen when Indra appeared in front of the altar as soon as the man finished and Lexa picked her head up, reaching over to take Clarke’s hand in her own, cold fingers tangling together. The chief talked in a steeled voice that echoed in the space of the Cathedral and Clarke felt her stomach roll dangerously when Indra informed the people of the Reapers.

The museum had been one of their main bases. The few papers and coded messages that survived the flames, led the patrol teams just outside the city, in the factory of an old wine industry. Fifty missing people were found inside, covered in injuries of various states. Ten Reapers had been inside, half of them executed in a field outside of the factory, half of them taken in for questioning. Clarke remembered that day; Lexa had come home with a grim look on her face and her eyes red and puffy, her body aching and her throat moving every couple of seconds with heavy gulps of emotions. Clarke had drawn her a bath, hadn’t asked, held her tight against her chest that night, until Lexa had woken up from a nightmare and stumbled to the bathroom to throw up. They’d slept on the freezing tiles until the sun started to peek over the horizon.

The nightmares were constant between both of them. Clarke rarely woke up through them, opening her tired eyes when the alarm clock beeped, feeling her body numb, her heart racing in her chest, images staying for a couple of hours. She talked to her mom about how the nightmares weren’t even about the museum; they were simply bad dreams that fucked her up in the mornings. Abby said it was normal, that talking would help and Clarke would completely shut down at that. She didn’t need to hear her voice talking about it, she didn’t need to watch Lexa’s face trying to stay stoic at the words, didn’t need to hear Raven’s voice cracking. Talking would help but Clarke didn’t know how or what to talk about.

She spent her time curled up wherever she sat, her feet buried in thick fluffy socks, her body aching and needing to move but being stopped by the cracked ribs on her side. Clarke felt the old loyal friend creep up on her at times, this freezing emotional detachment that would envelop her mind and body and make her feel shallow and unbalanced and wondering again why she couldn’t cry anymore after a month, why she couldn’t feel anymore, why she couldn’t explain this dissociation inside her.

It was anger that covered it when she was in school and then it was determination when she was in college. Now, it was her love for Lexa and her girlfriend’s bloodshot exhausted eyes. It was sleeping next to her, feeling long fingers tangled in hers and it was Lexa’s steady soft breathing a couple of inches away. A look at Lexa and Clarke doubted why she ever thought she wasn’t capable of feeling anything meaningfully positive at all.

Clarke looked at Lexa’s hand in her hold and listened to Indra talk about the people who had caught her and strapped her down on a table and beat her until she could barely walk and she felt anger in her gut because they did it for money, they did it to keep something rotten alive, to bury a revolution in blood and terror just because they were so stuck up in some beliefs that made okay the use of torture and horrors. Her heart skipped a few beats as the war chief talked and talked and Clarke looked at Lexa’s fingers curling around hers and softly grunted as her free hand itched and her arm pressed down on the gun strapped against her good side. She thought of bringing up her hand to touch the metal but Lexa’s hand tightened and Clarke wondered once again how the hell this woman was so in sync with her thoughts and impulses.

Stormy blue eyes looked up at pained green and Clarke leaned in, distracting herself with a kiss that Lexa returned without a thought. The young doctor wished for Indra to stopped talking about them, wished for the red freezing rage in her gut to stop boiling through her blood. She felt like losing all control over her body and she closed her eyes tight against Lexa, pulling away to hide her face in her girlfriend’s neck.

“Breathe, Clarke”, Lexa whispered in her hair and she tried, whimpering and wanting to hear Lexa’s voice again. “Breathe with me, my love”.

Clarke brought a hand up and placed it on Lexa’s chest to feel the movement better and she did her best to follow it, her racing heartbeat slowing down its pace, the red rage softly evaporating. She breathed out against Lexa when Indra stepped away and Octavia made her way up. She felt drained and exhausted, her ribs were hurting and she felt exposed in her seat.

Lexa wrapped an arm around her as Clarke brought her legs up against her chest, ignoring the pain the movement caused, body pressing against her girl’s embrace. She zoned out and took a moment to look at the way the soft light of the lowering sun broke through the colored glass of the Cathedral windows, took a moment to look up at the framed paintings and colored detailed hagiographies. Clarke was never one to turn to religion but she would be damned if she didn’t appreciate the beauty of the art it inspired.

“You are safe”, Lexa whispered in her hair and Clarke nodded slowly, her eyes flying over the people seated around her. She took in their ragged clothes and the soft light in their eyes and the laughs Octavia’s passionate speech brought out and she slacked against Lexa, her body relaxing on the uncomfortable wooden bench.

She relaxed and tuned in to Lexa's breathing, lifting her head only when a group of social workers brought in steaming bowls of soup and spread them around to the people who might want something to eat. She lifted her head only when a couple of kids kicked a ball close to them and Lexa jerked slightly in surprise before chuckling, tightening her arm around Clarke in the process. Clarke relaxed, took in the people around her, watched them fall in easy conversation with strangers, friends, allies and comrades, lifting her head when Bellamy dropped on the seat next to her with a smile and a wink and a single rose in his hand that had her laughing softly, shaking her head at his ridiculousness.

And right there in the middle of the city’s general meeting, Clarke fell asleep on Lexa’s shoulder, feeling safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen, I have feelings for soft!Raven and soft!Bellamy, okay? Okay.
> 
> Did I write emotional detachment good? I don't know, it was so difficult, I think I lost it in a few paragraphs but well, editing is a thing, I might change some things here and there.
> 
> Tell me what you thought of this chapter. The ending was so soft, it warmed my insides.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FLUFF ALL THE FLUFF TAKE IT I AM IN A GOOD MOOD

“… and the nerves of his thigh were just wrecked…”

Clarke gently smiled as she watched her mother talk about the latest surgery she and her team performed. She let her mother’s familiar steady voice wash over her, circle her senses, gain her whole attention. Ironically, Clarke had to be kidnapped, tortured and kill a man for them to finally sit down and talk like functional adults.

They didn’t exactly _talk_ about everything, about the past and the mistakes they had both made back then. Clarke didn’t think there was a point to talk about it now; now that the whole world was burning and leaving ashes on its tail for something else to build on top of it. The war was happening, another world was building, people were dying and there weren’t many choices for them to consider.

A part of Clarke was glad Abby couldn’t find out of Lexa’s actual role in the whole thing because that would _surely_ bring up some strong arguments about safety.

They sat on the edge of a road, watching the few cars come and go, dust and cracks covering their metallic parts, the tiles sliding on the thin layer of ice that had crawled from the sidewalks on the concrete. The wide street in front of them was separated in two lines, one for the vehicles and one for the people. Food stands and tents were set up around, tables and pots with dead plants being placed around to give a bit of color, the actual people being the only thing gracing the scenery with some life.

Clarke took in a calm breath, aware of her hurt ribs, eyeing the food Abby had placed on the table between them; steaming soup with floating vegetables, dry bread and a piece of cold cheese. It smelled bad and Clarke had a feeling it tasted worse and her stomach twisted, painful and empty and hungry but still not enough desperate for it. She’d eventually eat it, she always did, they all did.

A movement in the side of the dark side of the road caught the edge of her attention and Clarke turned slowly, narrowing her eyes as she watched in the shadows beyond the tents, beyond the edge of the buildings, between the walls of the structures. The shadows were thick in the fading light of the lowering sun and Clarke only managed to get a glimpse of a figure slipping out of sight.

She blinked and turned back to her mother, just in time to see a question appear in Abby’s brown eyes. Clarke soothed it with a faint smile, causing her mother to fall back to the rest of her story, eased, calm and glad for them sitting together without fighting about something.

Clarke reached a hand up to her side, letting her thumb caress the metal of her gun.

“Hey, Mama G.” Raven’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts just as her best friend dropped into the seat next to Abby. Bellamy’s body appeared behind Raven and he walked around to sit next to Clarke, his smile shinning with a joke they hadn’t heard. He leaned back, placing an arm on the back of Clarke’s chair and she leaned onto his body, the familiar safety he offered with his presence. His big palm came to rest on her shoulder, the warmth of his hand sipping though her coat and down to her body.

Clarke relaxed against him.

“Raven”, Abby greeted her friend with a crocked smile. “How’s the shop?”

Clarke let their voices wash over her, pretending to check at Octavia and Lincoln in the food stand as they waited in line for their own food. Clarke let her eyes find the shadows of the narrow alley between the buildings, letting her gaze being sucked in by the deepening unmoving darkness there.

\---

Lexa was already home when Clarke walked in and she froze on the doorstep at the sight waiting, her very soul _softening_ at the uncountable flowers that were placed in small pots around the tiny space.

“Huh, Lexa?”

“Hey”, Lexa looked at her with a wide smile as she walked out of the bathroom, the usual exhaustion nowhere to be found in her face. She nodded at the flowers. “Sorry about the whole mess. The meeting was in a flower shop and I just…” she trailed off, her grin growing with the one which slowly appeared in Clarke’s face as well. “They were dying away so I took them”.

Clarke chuckled and closed the door behind her mindlessly, waiting for Lexa to walk to her as she stayed standing by the wall. “They are beautiful”, she whispered at the woman next to her, reaching up to take a hold of Lexa’s cheek, bringing her close for a greeting long kiss. “And they are free to stay and thrive here”.

Lexa smiled brightly, caressing the side of her face with the back of her fingers. “How was dinner with your mom?”

“Good. The food was awful though”.

Lexa frowned. “Where?”

“By the park, downtown”.

Lexa hummed quietly and Clarke rolled her eyes as she practically saw the wheels staring to turn in the Commander’s head. She shifted closer and stole another kiss, just to have Lexa focusing back on her rather than the food situation the Coalition seemed to battle every single week. Clarke sighed as Lexa’s hands carefully landed on her hips, fingertips only slightly slipping under the edge of her light blue sweater.

“Stop thinking about work”.

Lexa laughed and Clarke grinned at the sound. “Work?”

“Yeah, well, you called it so yourself”, Clarke whispered, taking another kiss from Lexa’s mouth, sighing softly at the way her girl’s hand slipped around her waist to settle on the small of her back.

“Clarke”, Lexa mumbled when she moved her lips to place a gentle kiss on Lexa’s jaw and then the side of her neck. “We need to talk about something”.

The blonde groaned dramatically and dropped her head on the Commander’s chest, immediately feeling arms circle her body to hold her close. Clarke took a moment to listen to Lexa’s heart beating against her ribcage, to feel the way her body softened against the brunette. Clarke gritted her teeth, not liking the way she felt detached from her body, the way her mind floated around in her skull there but somewhere far away at the same time, feeling Lexa against her but not quite right.

“What is it?” she heard herself saying and her thoughts flashed with images of faint shadows moving.

She shuddered; cold all of the sudden.

“I am needed in Texas for a while”, Lexa whispered, placing a kiss on the top of her head. “Things are not good there”.

“What happened?”

The Commander sighed. “There is… a civil war of its own there. Our members cannot protect the people, the fascists have taken a damn root right there. We have trouble sending in aid, supplies. The State’s ambassador resigned and the generals called for help”.

Clarke sighed against the red hoodie and pulled back, looking up to meet the green eyes, the guilt swimming in them. Lexa leaned in the palm of her hand, which found a place on the Commander’s cheek.

“Will you be safe?”

Clarke felt, rather than saw, the way Lexa’s jaw clenched. “Gustus will be with me”.

“He is one man, Lexa”.

“I will be protected”.

Clarke bit her lip, thought of blood soaked long fingers and a bullet buried on Lexa’s gut. A choking sigh escaped her chest and Lexa’s eyes softened with so much worry that Clarke couldn’t help but reach up and press another long kiss on her girl’s lips.

“When do you leave?”

“Tomorrow”.

“When do you come back?”

Lexa hang her head, a pained expression over her face and Clarke leaned back to take her face in her hands, fingertips caressing her closed eyes softly. “You don’t know yet?” she answered for Lexa and the brunette heavily breathed out.

“As soon as I can”.

“How will you travel?”

At that, Lexa laughed but it was anxious and hollow. “Some plane Titus found”.

“Titus?”

Lexa paused and hesitated and Clarke kissed her to cover the slip of the name of one of her ambassadors. Clarke did not like the way the Commander would let down her total guard around her. “Do you trust him?”

“God, no”.

“What are you doing, Lexa?”

“Indra is coming with me”, Lexa said instead and Clarke met her gaze. “The… pilot is ex-military, member of the Coalition by now, a very trusted man sends him to us. We will be safe during the travel; we will land a day’s ride from one of the rebels’ bases close to Austin”.

Clarke sighed and her hands tightened around the thick fabric of Lexa’s hoodie. She could think of a million different ways Lexa could be ambushed during the way by military, federal agencies, even Reapers. If it was in her hand, she’d send someone else in the Commander’s position but she knew Lexa wouldn’t risk going herself if it wasn’t completely necessary.

Her voice felt thick. “Is there any way we can talk when you’re there?”

Lexa shrugged, thoughtful green eyes diving in her own blue ones. “Burner phones”, Lexa said and shrugged again when Clarke lifted an eyebrow.

“The signal is down, Lexa, or controlled”.

It was Lexa’s time to lift an eyebrow, a teasing smile on her face and Clarke paused before cracking out a laugh at the Commander’s smirk. The blonde pressed closer, making the smirk widen slightly as Clarke pressed the front of their bodies together and stretched up as much as her still tender side allowed.

“You know you’re sexy when you get all cocky-commander-like”.

“I serve to please, Clarke”.

She gently bit down on Lexa’s lower pulp lip and was indeed very pleased to feel the Commander’s hold tightening around her, green eyes darkening. “Burner phones are not safe”, Clarke mumbled against Lexa’s lips, smirking when the brunette groaned at the shift of the mood.

“Letters then; I will be sending reports to the Council –to Anya”.

There was _something_ awfully romantic about the idea but Clarke did not like the anticipation it’d cause. Maybe in another lifetime, when her girlfriend wouldn’t be shipped in the middle of a warzone for days or maybe weeks. She settled with the more practical thought of the old burner phones.

“How would the phones even work?”

Lexa placed a kiss on Clarke’s forehead, pulling back. “The Coalition has a stock. I will see into it before I leave”.

Clarke nodded and pulled back to look at her. “Well, since we are talking all serious when we could do other things to send you off in a damned warzone; I’m still angry about this one by the way; I’m thinking of getting back to work”.

Lexa seemed surprised but she smiled anyway. “Your ribs?”

“Eh, they’ll take some more time to heal but I can move around. And I can walk so…”

“And… mentally?”

Clarke hesitated and Lexa softened. “I mean it’d do some good for me to be around people again, working again. It will… keep me distracted of… you know”.

Lexa nodded slowly. “Have you talked with your mom about that?” she switched the conversation and Clarke felt the tension leaving her whole body.

“Yeah, she was actually the one suggesting it”, Clarke cleared her throat, moving to get to the bed, finally shrugging off her jacket and then pushing off her boots. Her body thanked her as soon as she sat on the mattress, thanked her even more when Lexa sat next to her, crossing those sinfully long legs.

“I’m glad you’re talking again”, Lexa said. She took one of Clarke’s hands just to bring it up to her mouth and kiss the back of it, making her heart skip a few much needed beats. _This little damn charmer_.

“Yeah, there are not many life choices she can question”, Clarke said, distracted by how gorgeous Lexa was in this light. Her fingers inch with the need to touch her or sketch her or paint her form on a canvas.

“Clarke”, Lexa scowled at the previous words. “Be civil”.

She laughed and leaned closer to Lexa, taking her lips in one more kiss. She pulled at the Commander’s hips until the beautiful woman settled on Clarke’s lap, carefully leaning over her to deepen the kiss. Fingers tightened around clothes and Lexa let a soft moan in the kiss, the sound wrapping around Clarke’s heart and soul and mind and softening every part of her.

She tried to ignore the way her skin crawled when Lexa slightly leaned back and cool air met the uncovered skin of her torso. She tried to ignore the bothering way her palms sweated and fingers twitched. She tried to get rid of the feeling by pressing them harder against Lexa’s skin, trying to focus on the sensation of the fabric of Lexa’s jeans rubbed against her palms.

Clarke jerked when a hand landed on the side of her neck and she couldn’t gulp down a whimper and the need to curl into herself.

“Lexa, wait”, Clarke breathed out, hard, hating the way the woman on her lap pulled back and left her body exposed to the open air. Her skin crawled and she pressed her own hand on the side of her neck, rubbing at the spot there to make the sensations go away.

“Sorry”.

“I’m sorry”.

They heavily laughed and Clarke slowly tightened her hold on Lexa’s hip as she gently pushed her off. However, she made sure to shift closer right away, breathing out in relief at the way she was able to pull her legs up, closer to her chest, moving to press her back on the blanket and against the wall. Lexa caught up and softly helped Clarke wrap the blanket around herself.

“Sorry”, Clarke said again and hesitated before meeting the green eyes, finding sad understanding in them. “You know I want you, right?”

Lexa nodded, moving to wrap the blanket tighter around Clarke, scooting closer. “I know. You have nothing to be sorry for”.

“It’s been more than a month. I shouldn’t still feel like this”.

“It takes as long as it takes, Clarke”, Lexa whispered and carefully pressed closer, let out a sigh as Clarke leaned forward and against her, hiding her face in her neck. Her arms slowly wrapped around her back and Clarke breathed easier, closing her eyes.

“It’s just…” Clarke gulped and felt Lexa go quiet against her. She pressed her feet on the warm mattress and phantom pain sliced through her. “I know I’m safe with you but I still feel so… so exposed”.

Lexa nodded slowly and pressed a long kiss on her hair.

And once she started, finding some solace in Lexa’s gaze, Clarke didn’t know how to stop talking about it. “And outside, I… I always look behind my back”.

“I know”.

“I… I always need someone with me, _next to me_ , never behind me or… or in front of me because I cannot look around if they are in front of me and…”

“Clarke…”

“… in the food stands, it is the worst because there are people behind me and I don’t know them and there are people watching and there was this guy in the basement, not Emerson, the son of a bitch was always so very _present_ and his face was fucking _everywhere_ , but this other guy –he just… he was just _there_ and watching and…”

“Hey”, Lexa pulled back to meet her eyes. Clarke was shaking by now. “Look at me, look around, you’re okay”.

Clarke breathed out and she slowly felt her body slipping away from her mind. She looked around her apartment, taking in the changes, the pieces of furniture that were missing. Maybe she should have listened to Lexa when she’d suggested it’d be better if she moved out of this apartment. They knew of it, they knew of her, they could come back.

She nodded to herself. “I will be moving out”, she said slowly and Lexa caressed her cheek. “I will ask Raven if I can stay with her while you’re away”.

“That’s good”, Lexa tried but Clarke was away, lost in her thoughts of a basement and a group of people paid to terrorize. _They did a good fucking job_ , Clarke thought as she slowly leaned back down against Lexa, a part of her mind trying to focus on the woman’s deep breathing, on the mindless shapes her gentle hands drew on her covered back.

“You better come back to me in one piece”.

“I wouldn’t be going if it wasn’t important”.

“I know”.

“Clarke…”

“I love you, Lexa”.

She felt Lexa go numb against her and Clarke sighed, pulling back to meet wide green eyes. Green eyes so very beautiful and she wondered how the hell she had managed not to think of them when she was in that dark basement, bare of hope and strength and something _good_. A scratching tight knot settled in her throat as she saw equally pained and relieved tears gather in Lexa’s beautiful eyes.

Hands came up to frame her face slowly, pushing back the long strands of blond hair, a gesture so gentle and caring that Clarke had to gulp down an actual sob.

“I…”

“I love you”, Lexa whispered and the sob won the battle, pulling a choked sound out of her mouth and pushing the tears out of her eyes. Lexa’s fingertips wiped them away and she scooted even closer, making Clarke open the cocoon of the blanket to pull Lexa in. She brought her own hands up to cup Lexa’s cheeks, wrapping her legs slowly around Lexa’s hips to keep her close.

“I love you”, Clarke cried, feeling Lexa shudder as well. “Come back to me”.

“Always, Clarke”, Lexa whispered and a single tear fell from her eye.

Clarke caught it with her thumb and she leaned in to press a long firm kiss on Lexa’s mouth, feeling the woman shudder again. It was a mess of tears and saliva and snort and Lexa pulled back with a wet chuckle _just_ to point the whole thing out, making Clarke laugh.

“You just _had to_ say that”, Clarke sniffed and brought up a hand to wipe her face, the smile widening across her mouth when Lexa weakly laughed as well. “You’re a jerk”.

“You are disgusting”, Lexa coughed between her tears and softly slapping away the blonde’s hands, replacing them with a napkin that Clarke had no idea where it came from. “The messiest love confection ever”.

“Shut up”, Clarke laughed as she blew her nose, wiping her cheeks in the sleeves of her sweater. “It was perfect”.

Lexa softened at the words and grinned so brightly and Clarke melted.

“I love you”.

“I love you too”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As for the show MY GOD YOU GUYS this shit is so BAD like HOLY SHIT I didn't expect much but OH MY GOD IT IS GETTING WORSE AND WORSE WITH EACH EPISODE I laughed when IT happened just because of the awfullness of it all. Such a bad writting you guys this shit has gotten hillarious and IT KEEPS GETTING BAD LIKE HOW-
> 
> I enjoyed the people still watching thinking our dear Bellamy didn't die back in season two. They kept stanning whatever happened to this character after that and dear god we had Bellamy's death YEARS AGO.
> 
> But still, still, as much as I enjoy Clexas being little shits, guys, I'm sure this hurt many people, soften your jokes a bit and make sure you support there heartbroken children who just found out what it means to lose your dear character to a bullet. Poor children I want to hug them.
> 
> Clexa and Bellarke shippers, I call upon you to unite against one (1) showrunner and writter who ruined a great show in its first seasons.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone once asked me if this is a dystopia. I thought about it and well, here, you have my thoughts of what revolution partly looks like in my head. A nice quiet neighborhood, with people planting their own food and building a small community with wall paintings and small memorials of history and a cosy safe scenery.
> 
> Beside the plot and all, this is what I want the world to look like in the future *sigh* and here you go; I will be trying to balance the whole thing out from now on. I don't want this to be a dystopian world (I mean it is war and everything is kind of destroyed and there is death and awful things happening and shit but worldbuilding, you guys, worldbuilding is fucking beautiful and people are beautiful beings and so their world has to be beautiful as well).
> 
> And now, let me say that trigger warnings will slowly start to come up again. I want this story to be good but my plot is rough. *another sigh*

“This is such a bad idea”.

The Blake siblings smirked at the same time. Raven huffed, biting back a smirk of her own despite the questions in her gaze, still watching the street they had just crossed.

“Why are we sneaking around?” Clarke asked yet again, pressing her back on the stone wall behind her. Her thighs had started to ache by the running, the ducking and the tension. “If patrol catches us…”

Bellamy shushed her.

“Chill”, Octavia smirked. “We are fine”.

“We are sneaking around”, Clarke hissed. “And I don’t even know why?”

“For old time’s sake”, Bellamy mumbled, still watching the street. He turned to find her eyes in the lowered light of the alley. “We missed Party Girl Griffin”.

“I’m almost thirty. Party Girl Griffin was left somewhere in college with my energy”.

“That is why we are missing her”, Octavia said before signaling them to start moving again. They ducked as they moved along the brick wall of the building, careful not to dump onto neat piles of filled huge black trash bags.

It was way passed Clarke’s bedtime and she still ached due to the long hours she had spent in the hospital. The thought of having to wake up early tomorrow morning was unbearable. But it had been good; working, learning to be around strangers, learning to be around old co-workers again. Nylah’s calming presence helped the most.

Still, the pang of excitement and pleasant anticipation she was currently feeling kept her on the deserted streets with her friends. Raven was behind her, a hand wrapped around the fabric of her coat to both keep Clarke grounded and to the mechanic on her feet against the sharp movements of the Blake siblings. Octavia had a back pack hanging from one shoulder, a shotgun on the other, a cap on her head. The latest item was unnecessary but the younger brunette glowed every time she needed to adjust it on her head so Clarke didn’t comment on it much.

Suddenly, the concrete under their feet shifted to a stony pavement that had both Clarke and Raven pausing lightly. Soft light was casted around the new neighborhood, a few long lines of lanterns hanging above their heads to create a gentle yellow glow on the street. The walls of the buildings were covered with old bullet holes, missing pieces of concrete fallen to the side, the bricks bare and cracked. Most of the small windows were dark, the shutters closed. Clarke spotted a lonely dog in one of the balcony’s, the animals sleepy eyes glowing like two little dots in the darkness, its curious gaze following them as they walked through the unknown neighborhood.

Clarke felt her mouth part as she took in the vivid graffiti painting the walls to – not exactly _cover_ the destruction left behind by the machine guns but to embrace it in a way. Clarke took in the shapes the paint formed on the cracked brick walls, letters and words and colors twisting together, giving away to full on paintings – paintings of the old demonstrations which had been stricken down. She recognized more than one of the people portaited on the surfaces, the scenes being painted in some parts; the old police station burning, the library’s double door wide opened for the homeless, the White House collapsing in the distance. She recognized them because she _had been there_ , she had seen the painted scenes when they first unfolded, she had met these people before they were shot down by a soldier’s machine gun.

Cars were parked on the left side of the road, the right side lined with heavy pots filled with flowers and plants and small, growing trees. They seemed to be left to grow on their own, the branches and the leaves twisting together with a natural wildness, which with the help of the pavement, became one with the intense brick walls behind them, the scenery so very different from what Clarke was used to. She felt as if she was walking in the middle of a village in the countryside rather than the middle of her hometown.

It reminded her of something she had been forgetting ever since the basement and the Reapers.

The light of the lanterns had their shadows thickening and growing bigger, forcing them to duck closer to the walls of the buildings, to sharpen their eyes. Clarke and Raven still didn’t know why they were sneaking around but Bellamy and Octavia’s eyes looked sure and confident so they followed their lead. They turned a corner, then another and another and Clarke had a vague feeling of where they were but the scenery of this block had her mind disconnecting. More than once she found herself pausing to take in a small detail that had something warming in her chest; a street painting standing out among the others, a climbing thin plant wrapping itself around a broken light pole, a stray white cat sleeping on top of a trash bin, a burned car covered with melted candles and surrounded by small wooden stools and tables, a line of dirt among the pavement with crops growing slowly.

“Come on”, Octavia whispered as she took another turn and just then, Clarke’s ears picked up faint music. At the end of the street, there was strong light spilling from around another corner.

Clarke felt Raven holding her breath as they approached and the faint music became louder, guitar and saxophone and tambour, a soft voice singing along, a song Clarke didn’t know of but wished to have. She took a moment to mourn the loss of her old phone and the internet as the Blake siblings straightened and freely walked the last couple of feet, equal big smiles on their faces.

They turned the corner and found themselves in the doorstep of a small house that looked more like a hut rather than a one-store building. There were three contained bonfires burning there, the warmth of the flames breaking the freezing air of winter. The door was wide open, a big number of candles was placed around and flickered gently in the night air, a few people were gathered. A rusted staircase was next to them, a couple sitting on the stairs and Clarke’s eyes travelled up and up and up, at the candles placed on each step, all the way to the taller building’s roof. Two pairs of legs hanged from the edge up there but Clarke couldn’t see more than that.

“Bellamy!” a cheery quiet voice called out and Clarke’s eyes snapped to a woman around their age, kind eyes taking them in. She had a thin red bandana around her forehead, the fabric holding her hair back. Wide silk clothes covered her body, the fabric so thin they were almost see-through. Pants with patches of red and green and blue flowed freely around her legs and Clarke thought she was beautiful. How the hell she wasn’t cold, Clarke didn’t have an answer for that.

“Hey, Harper”, Bellamy smiled so wide that both Raven and Clarke did a double take at his grin before they exchanged a look of their own.

“You brought people”, Harper said and her smile widened with delight. Clarke froze when a pair of very muscular arms gently wrapped around her. Harper didn’t linger, was quick to hug Raven and then Octavia, holding onto the last one for a bit longer. “I do not know what you told them about whatever this is but well… I don’t have much to offer you other than water and company”, Harper laughed and her voice was husky and lowered and joyful and Clarke felt her lips pick up. “Come, come”.

“We met in patrol”, Bellamy offered as they walked up the other people sitting on the ground on the near steps. The three people who played music only shot them small smiles before turned their eyes on each other, communicating without words about what to play next.

“I can’t picture her holding a gun”, Raven answered. Her eyes were wide and she still had her hand wrapped around the back of Clarke’s coat, holding on as she limbed a bit more than normal. It was always like this when the temperatures dropped.

“Oh, she can be vicious”, Bellamy nodded slowly and Raven lifted an eyebrow before sharing another look with Clarke. However, their friend’s eyes were focused not on Harper softly laughing and gently dancing on her own to the music, but on another woman who lighted up when she spotted Bellamy.

Clarke bit her lip to keep from grinning at her friend.

Raven didn’t even try; she gasped and smirked so wide her cheeks must have hurt.

Octavia glared at them both with amusement and a warning. “Let him be”.

“Oh, no _chance_ , little Blake…”

Clarke elbowed Bellamy to have him moving and the woman watching him laughed, open and happy to see him. Clarke liked her already. “Who is she?”

“Gina”, Bellamy whispered, breathless, and Clarke could feel Raven vibrating with all the teasing she was forced to hold back.

“Gina?” Clarke deadpanned, biting her lip to keep from laughing. Octavia mumbled something about her old brother being a complete smitten idiot.

“Yeah”, he answered uselessly and Raven loudly snickered, while Clarke tensed up impossibly hard to stay cool. She bit her tongue and almost thought of pressing a hand on her tender side to keep from bursting.

“Do you want to tell us more about Gina, Bell?”

“She is just so… good”.

Octavia groaned and Raven choked on her own tongue and Clarke laughed so loud that Bellamy jolted, his eyes widening and face reddening and Clarke had to hold onto him to keep from doubling over, her hurt side already staining painfully as the laughter travelled through her whole body.

Bellamy growled out something and pushed her away and onto Raven, forcing his sister to hold the two giggling friends up. He walked up to Gina with his head held high and send both Clarke and Raven into another wave of ridiculous laughter.

“Well, this is something I did not think possible”, a voice said and Clarke felt a cold fingers wrapping around her stomach, squeezing, making her laugher die slowly in her throat. “Hello, Clarke, didn’t know you could laugh”.

Clarke straightened and Murphy lifted an eyebrow, the scowl permanent on his face. He had a cigarette in his hand and there was a healing cut on the side of his face. _It would leave a scar_ , she thought. Her hand twisted with the need to reach up and caress the litter of smaller scars that now gently mapped her own face. They were more like small pink lines on her skin rather than rough jarred skin, but they were there, the pain of them all too vivid in her mind each time she reached up.

Her sharpened mind shifted to Lexa and the way her lips gently travelled over them after a nightmare.

“Oh, wait, _wait_ , this is the Clarke you told us about?” there was an unknown woman next to him, a cigarette in her own cold fingers as well. Her eyes were wide with surprise and something like awe and Clarke felt her skin crawl. Clarke met Murphy’s gaze again from where it had stayed unmoving on her the whole time and she gritted her teeth, not liking the memories his face brought back.

His scowl deepened and Clarke guessed the feeling was mutual.

“Ah, seriously?” Harper was next to them and smiling. “I was there and, fuck me, girl, you did some damage to them. You’re like… a bloody urban legend around”.

She wanted to be out of there.

“Hey, I’m Raven”, her friend slipped between them with a wide smile that couldn’t be ignore and Clarke took a breath when the attention shifted away from her for a second. “Guess who is her role model and gave her the impulses to blow shit up”.

“Emori”, the woman next to Murphy offered a hand out and Raven gripped it, gaze lingering on the jagged scars and the handmade brace wrapping around the fingers and palm.

“Cool design”, she mumbled just as Emori started to tense up under the attention her injured hand was getting, her own eyes travelling down to Raven’s leg. “Did you make this yourself?”

“Mostly”.

“Tell me about it. I’m thinking of building another prosthetic and this looks promising”, the mechanic mumbled as she tapped her fingers on the brace of the other woman’s hand. Emori seemed to slowly relax and the two of them fell into a conversation of nerve damage and machine guns and bombs and Clarke felt the walls of the buildings closing around her a bit.

“Excuse me”, she mumbled and walked up to the rusted stairs, climbing the steps up until the people on the ground looked like tiny silhouettes. The building was tall, eight or nine floors and Clarke’s legs started to hurt around the fourth floor, her breathing heavy when she finally reached the top, her ribs hurting, her heart throbbing. She reached into her back pack and found a bottle of freezing water among papers and bullets and pencils and small med kits.

There were two young men on the roof, who shot her a look and tensed and the scent of weed filled her nose, her heart tightening because one; it was illegal and the Coalition did not play around, two; her three very close friends were members of said Coalition and despite their bad relationship with authority, they tended to be rather loyal to the whole thing, three; it had been _years_ since she had some pot herself and four; Lexa would most definitely kill her if Clarke asked them some and she found out in a way. Clarke was sure there were guards still following her around but as much as she had tried she had never spotted them.

Lexa picked up in the fourth annoying electronic beep and Clarke’s heart warmed at the sleep she heard wrapped in her girlfriend’s voice.

“Hey”, she whispered, quiet enough for the two guys not to hear her.

“ _Clarke, everything alright, my love?_ ”

“Yeah, you?”

_“Yes. Texas is… I don’t know… I like DC more. Better weather though”._

“Not too cold?”

_“No, not really”._

Clarke smiled softly as she gazed the city spreading out ahead of her, the light of the lanterns and the broken lighting bulbs mapping out the streets below her. The stars shone beautifully and Clarke slowly lowered herself on the floor of the roof, turning her gaze up.

“Sorry, I woke you up”.

_“Oh, that’s fine, my love”._

Clarke’s chest warmed and she was so in love with this woman.

“Any idea when you are coming back?”

_“Yes, actually, things are clearing down here a bit, by next week I will be home”._

“Good, your cousin and Raven were disgustingly falling in love and I didn’t want to live with them anymore. I moved to the Court House with Octavia and Lincoln. Nice room you have there by the way, the bed is huge”.

Lexa laughed on the other side of the line and Clarke closed her eyes, having missed the sound, having missed her smile and her hands and her words and her charming self and her awfully relentless and cute flirting.

 _“I missed you”_ , Lexa echoed her thoughts and Clarke nodded even though Lexa could not see her. _“I will be back soon. And we will be able to enjoy said bed”._

“You better”. A thought nudged her head and she cleared her throat now knowing if she wanted to clarify it. “Are you fighting with the rebels?” she asked anyway and her stomach tightened with worry.

 _“No, no, I haven’t had to yet”_ , Lexa sighed heavily in the speaker. _“I met an old friend though and we are sparing. I have a few bruises from that”._

“Be careful”.

_“I am”._

“I know. Tell me about the friend”.

_“Roan is from back home. How the hell he managed to get to Texas all the way from there, I have no idea. We met in a city’s general meeting and then I travelled and lost contact. He might be coming back with us… Anya doesn’t like him”._

“Anya doesn’t like anyone, babe”.

 _“I will tell her you said that_ ”.

Clarke gasped. “You’re a shitty traitor”.

Lexa laughed. _“You love me though”._

Clarke honest-to-god melted right there. She whispered, “Fuck, I do. So much”.

She could feel Lexa soften on the other side of the line. _“I love you too”._

Clarke smiled, cleared her throat, ignored the flattering of her heart. “We are in a nice part of town”.

“ _Oh?_ ”

“Yeah, it’s… a lot of graffiti on the walls, flowers, lanterns… They have been planting their own seeds and crops here. It’s very nice. Have you been?”

_“No, no, but I hear various neighborhoods and blocks are opting to make their own food now. There is a State, huh, I don’t really remember now, where the generals do not have to worry about the food. I think it is Colorado but I’m not sure”._

“Sounds like people are settling to something new”.

 _“Yes, I know, right? It is great to see it happening_ ”, Lexa said, sounding relieved and Clarke smiled. Her eyes caught movement and she turned to see Murphy climbing onto the roof and turning his head to the two guys giggling to the far side of the roof.

“Hey, babe, I have to go”, she said onto the phone, seeing Murphy’s head turn in the darkness, looking for her for sure. “We walked onto Murphy here and he found me on the roof”.

 _“Be careful on the roofs, Clarke. You have already fallen for me; I don’t want you falling again_ ”.

Clarke snorted without meaning to. “This is the least smooth you have ever been”.

“ _It is because I am away from you. Who am I going to practice my flirting on? Roan?”_

“Goodnight, Lexa”, Clarke laughed on the phone and heard an answering laugh from her girlfriend. “I love you, idiot”.

_“I love you too, Clarke. Be safe”._

“You too”.

Clarke lowered the phone and pressed the red button, turning the device around to take out the battery and then the sim card. Murphy dropped next to her just as she broke the small thing in half and pocketed the parts of the device.

“Well, aren’t you privileged…”

“Shut up”, Clarke rolled her eyes, turning to look up at the stars. “I didn’t expect to see you again”.

He hummed, the scowl on his face. “Neither did I”.

“Why did Harper call me an urban legend?”

“Well, you kind of are. You took down their main base after all”.

“You did that”.

“You came up with the plan, you take the credit. Isn’t that what leaders usually do?”

She tensed. “I’m no leader”.

“I don’t think anyone believes that”.

Clarke sat up, turned to face him. “Speak”.

“People are talking, you know, and I am guessing you are a known face around. And you work in the hospital. I hear the doctors are not many”.

“They are not”.

“Yeah, well, people knew you before. And then you are caught and you get out of the museum and start to be around again. Didn’t help your case that a chief of patrol is in a relationship with you”.

“What does she have to do with anything?”

She tried to keep her voice cool, her face confused, her eyes downcast. She was sure the whole city could hear her heart racing in her chest, as fear and anxiety filled her body and mind. No one should know anything about Lexa. No one should even have any second or third thoughts about Lexa.

“The exceptional chief, who appeared out of nowhere and took a leadership place in the whole rebel army of the city and who Indra apparently _likes_? People talk, Clarke. The rebels and the patrol teams more than others”.

“How do you know so much?”

He shrugged in the darkness. “I’m trying to survive this. Information is power here”.

Clarke hummed. “You sound like a damn opportunist”.

“Leave me out of the political shit, Clarke. I am who I am”.

“Sounds like you have figured yourself out”.

“I have; which is also why I was surprised by you in the basement. You didn’t go with the flow. You stepped up and created it when it didn’t exist”.

“That’s what you are telling people?”

“I don’t talk about shit”.

“Harper just said you talked about me”.

“I mentioned the facts of how we got out. You were like… a key point”.

Clarke gritted her teeth at the words, pulled her legs up to her chest to wrap an arm around them, grounding herself on the floor, lost herself in the stars above her. “I do not want to be an urban legend. I have enough in my mind already”.

He shrugged again, lighted up a cigarette. “The Reapers will be looking for you. They thought you knew more than you let on. We could all see it. And I think it was why so many of us followed your suicidal plan”.

She closed her eyes tightly, fighting against of shudder and the image of Emerson’s skull being blown back as her fingers squeezed the trigger. She breathed out and was glad that Murphy didn’t offer any gestures or words of comfort. She didn’t want him to comfort her.

She sighed at the new information that was dropped on her. “Give me a cigarette”.

He did, passing her the lighter as well. “These things will kill you”.

Clarke let the smoke out and felt her muscles somehow relaxing at the familiarity of it between her fingers, of the smoke slowly clouding her lungs and clearing her mind. It had been _years_ since she had smoked. Clarke was sure her mother would kill her. “Shut up, Murphy”, she whispered, turning to look up at the stars again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ps. Harper is a hippie in every universe shush let her be


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double update? Yes. Today was a good fucking day, my dear antifascists.

Lexa chewed mindlessly on the beans they were served, her eyes taking in the words of the book she had placed next to her bowl, her mind spinning with the analysis and the critique of the Coalition’s latest actions about planning an attack on the military bases around Louisiana. She was glad for the critiques and the different points made; they put some things in perspective and helped her remember the different political and strategic sides that took part in the Coalition.

Texas was an issue; there was a civil war happening in the State amidst the civil war happening in the country. The Coalition was losing grounds, supplies and the trust of the people here. Lexa mumbled a curse under her breath as she felt the headache appearing, running a hand through her hair and scratching at her head lightly. Hair stack on her forehead because of the humid air of the place and Lexa mumbled out another curse, earning a side look from Roan. She preferred the direct cold rather than this… this suffocating heavy chilling air. Lexa was almost sure her bones would start to tremble sooner or later.

Unlike other States and cities, the people here had not been ready for a war of this scale. They shouldn’t have been dragged into this out of pressure. Lexa cursed again.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Roan glared, making her eyes snap up to him.

“This is a mess”, Lexa replied, looking back down on the thin book, straightening the pages. They needed a way to shift the people’s trust on the Coalition. They needed to organize more local people. They needed a patrol that actually patrolled the damn streets and the roads.

South Texas was fine; better than fine, the people had given themselves to the cause of this battle with much confidence and bravery and selflessness and solidarity. They had opened their borders with Mexico and had taken in political refugees, they had helped them cross the state to the borders and then to the neighbor cities where the Mexican people would have a better chance to settle down. Many teams had died in ambushes while doing so and Lexa had sent rebels from all over the country to help their remaining numbers here. It was promising.

Fascists had taken shelter north and were currently getting aid from the Mexican far right government and the heavily armed military bases in the state. They didn’t need Reapers or spies here; the rebel army was being overwhelmed day after day by the bigger numbers of the enemies, the lack of supplies and manpower, the lack of hope and support from the locals.

The fighters here needed a clear line of communication with the States around, they needed to not be cornered by the south borders, they needed to turn their attention on the people for now, rather than the military and local fascists. Lexa sighed, her leg bouncing lightly; the people were the key so how the hell would they get the support here…

Lexa wrecked her brain as she thought of the local needs; the people had electricity, they had water, food, weapons. Their hospitals were stocked up far better than the States where the Coalition controlled things. Even the schools were working –three times a week, the kids “protected from the terrorists” by armed men and women of the paramilitary army. Everything here worked smoothly, worked like the war was never declared, like the deaths of so many people due to machine guns and starvation and = executions after curfew had not even touched this State.

She froze.

Roan lifted a questioning eyebrow.

Lexa met his eyes and stumbled to get up. “Find me a communist”, she ordered him and quickly walked off to go find Indra in the training grounds.

\---

“We need to see the whole thing here from the very beginning”, Lexa stated as she leaned over the table. Her eyes scanned the books in front of her as she spoke, the reports, the analysis, the various flyers.

“Forget the war, forget the situation of the other States, forget the previous battles for a moment. I want to know about the workers. Why are the factories still working for the companies?”

A general scowled, his fingers tapping the metal of his assault rifle. “They are not working for the companies, they are working for the people”.

“Forget the people for a moment”, Lexa rubbed neck and cringed at her own words. She turned to the bookcase behind her and scanned the titles, her hand snapping to one of the books and throwing it to the man. He caught it with one hand and grinned with appreciation at the title. “The workers are back at work like nothing happened; they are working under the same conditions and for the same bosses”.

“You’re talking about the working class”, his companion said and smirked as well. He took the book from the general and flickered through the pages.

“ _The working class is revolutionary or it is nothing_ ”, the general quoted Marx and the people of the small council smiled lightly.

Lexa nodded slowly, turning to look back at the books, leaning against the wooden desk. “I want our small teams to get the factories, to their homes, to the places these people eat with their families, everywhere I don’t care. I want flyers of every single political party of this State to urge the workers on the streets, remind them of their friends and enemies. If it is safe; quick demonstrations, report back to me every day. I want the workers taking the power here from the sons of a bitch”.

“What about the common people?”

Lexa’s eyes shifted over the lines of books, taking in the familiar and unfamiliar titles, the colors of the covers. “The people are missing the truth”, she said. “Our truth; the propaganda here of the military forces and the fascists is becoming all these people know of. We need to boost up our own… I guess our own propaganda”.

“ _A lie told often enough becomes the truth_ ”, the man quoted again.

Roan threw a thick book at him with a glare. “You’ve read shit, we get it”.

“Roan”, Lexa growled and he glared back at her and Indra hit him with her shotgun on the shoulder to make him behave. The older man scoffed and leaned back on the couch and Lexa rolled her eyes.

A younger man was writing down on his notebook and cleared his throat to gain the attention of the room. “So, rebel teams in the factories to get the workers out in the streets and in the fight again. Flyers, graffiti, huh… what else, Commander?”

“Flyers and graffiti are not… Commander, we cannot be defensive again”, a woman was frowning from her place on the doorway and Lexa looked at her up and down, marking the black bandana around her upper arm, the red star printed on the fabric rather than the infinity symbol.

“It doesn’t do us any good to keep exposing ourselves to threats and keep losing”.

“But they…” the woman huffed, shaking her head and Lexa understood.

“I understand. Fascist, racists, Reapers… belong to a hole in the dirt; they truly do. And they will find their place there sooner or later, I can promise you that. But we also need to organize our fight here. Rush moves have never helped our cause. We are fighting to actually change the whole damn world, not simply hit them back.

”Leave the physical fighting to the side for now, talk with the people but lay low, I’m sure they’re gathering names and executing anyone found in the Coalition. Keep an eye out for any Reaper appearing to do the dirty work”.

“They do. Many comrades went missing or were executed when their cover blew”.

“Be sneaky and careful, keep watch, plan the work and the conversations and have backup before any move. I want you all united here, I want you safe.

”Remember, Texas was a part of the demonstrations and the movements in the very beginning; they actively stood against the government and fascism then and against the imperialistic wars later. Remind them that the people who are calling the rebels terrorists now, are the ones who were bombing hospitals and full cities in the Middle East less than a year ago. We need to take a few steps back here”.

“Ah, Commander? The internet is still working here; people still use it. So is the TV and the radio –the local stations are on air every afternoon. Anyway, we can use them as well? I remembered in the early demonstrations we had help from hackers”

Lexa sighed and tipped her head back. “I will find some contacts back in my base but I don’t promise much. They still tend to hang on their beliefs that do us no good at the moment”.

“What do you mean?”

“Eh, any group of people in power is corrupted and stuff”.

“Ah, is this about the Coalition as well?”

“Yes. But they hate the fascists more than us, so they might help…” Lexa shrugged. “We will report back to you about it. What else?”

“Our numbers are still dropping”.

“We will send help from, huh…” Lexa looked at the map “…Arizona? I need to talk with the ambassadors about this. But you will have fighters in a few days”.

“Is that a sure thing?”

“Yes”.

“And what about Mexico?”

“We cannot do much there. We can continue sneaking in information to our allies over but we cannot do anything more. I know they are pressing in but…”

“Don’t worry, Commander, we can hold the borders”.

“Good, if you need more help there, we will get numbers from the north”.

“Thank you, Commander”.

“Sounds good, Lexa”.

She nodded gently at the generals and turned back on the books. “If there is nothing else, you may leave. Roan, please stay for a moment”.

Everyone filtered out of the house’s study room, leaving the older man behind, his body slacking on the couch with each person that walked out. Lexa observed him with the corner of her eye; he had grown out his hair and there were scars on his face, his cheeks and jaw needed a good shave. There was a light in his eyes though, which Lexa hadn’t remembered from their old time back in New Hampshire.

“I want you to stay”, she mumbled and he scowled, leaning back on the couch and tapping his fingers on the leather cover rhythmically.

“I don’t want to stay in this shithole”.

“It doesn’t really matter”, Lexa replied and he smirked, looking her up and down as she kept her focus on the books. She crossed her legs on the ankles, letting the desk keep her weight for a moment. “You are needed here”.

“I was never one to talk with people about future utopias”.

“Yeah, I know. It is not what you will be doing”.

“Care to elaborate?”

She reached out for a book she hadn’t read before. _Adam Smith_.

“I want you to gather fighters that are like you”, she said slowly. “Forceful, stubborn, do not like authority and they honest to god hate these people”.

“Is that how you would describe me?”

“No, above everything else you are smart, Roan. I want you to organize them, give them weapons, lead them out in the highways, take shelter near the hills and the mountains”. She looked up and met his curious gaze. “I want you to hit any military vans, cars, bikes, tanks, everything passing in and out of the cities. Kill as many as you can, they have chosen their side and I’m out of patience”.

“I can do guerrilla”. He was smirking. “What about the fascists in the towns?”

She gritted her teeth. “If you can handle a second team for them, do it. But, Roan, I want you planning every ambush, yes? No room for mistakes, not room for rush actions. Before any of it, you will give reports, you will do the paperwork, you will write down everything and send it to me”.

“The rest of the war generals and chiefs? We have patrol, you know”.

Lexa shook her head. “No. I want them focusing on the workers”.

“So what is this?”

“This is the Coalition not letting the sons of a bitch walk around without a care in the world”, Lexa mumbled, putting the book back in place. “Keep them on their toes and keep the focus on you rather than the factories. The chief and generals will report to your ambassadors and the ambassadors will report to me. I want you to also keep me informed about the ambushes, Roan, it is important”.

Their eyes met. Lexa clenched her jaw. “Write down everything, Roan, I mean it. I want to know of every mistake and every action happening. Once a week, I want a report, even if all you did that week was sit around”.

He nodded slowly and the light shone more in his eyes. “Commanding armies suits you, Lexa”.

She shrugged. “I want you following the orders”.

“I will”.

“And do the damn paperwork”.

“What happens if I miss a report?”

“I’m cancelling the whole thing”.

“Isn’t that too much?”

“Questioning your commander, Roan?”

“Nah, not yet”, he said, uncrossing his legs and sitting up. “When do you leave?”

“In three days”.

He nodded, offered a hand for her to shake. “Give my greetings to Anya and Gustus”.

“They will be delighted to hear from you”.

He laughed as he walked out and Lexa smirked at his back, leaning back down on the front of the desk. She needed to find someone trusting to send them to watch Roan, she needed to sit down and read the reports coming from all over the country, she needed to finally take a walk around the city on her own to see how the people were living…

Indra popped her head through the open door and Lexa nodded to her to get in. The older woman didn’t smile as she walked closer, full business as always, and Lexa had to straighten her back to match the energy coming from her general.

“What is it?”

Indra lifted a piece of paper and Lexa glared at it. “News from Colorado”.

“Good or bad?”

Indra’s mouth lightly curled upwards, “Good ones”, the general said as she passed the letter to Lexa. She scanned the messy handwriting, rubbing at the spots of dirt that covered the thin paper.

Her head snapped up, eyes wide.

Indra was smiling.

“Can we confirm that?” Lexa asked, breathless, her heart racing. “Can we…”

“We already have”, Indra nodded and Lexa laughed, looking down at the letter again.

Five military bases down, five hundred rebels freed from prisons held by Reapers, a large number of their enemy departing from the State, taking shelter to the cities all around, being hunted by the very civilians there. The hunting parties found a black market filled with medical equipment and so much food that the injured rebels were immediately taken care of. Countless victory festivals and gatherings were currently taking place all over the state and were still going to this day –three days later from the date of the fights.

All of that happened in two days and two nights, three days ago.

They were _actually_ winning.

“This… this is…” Lexa read the second report of the rebel army immediately taking hold of the military systems and armory, of the forces that were send to hold the borders of the state, the very people joining the Coalition all at once to help with the much needed protection of the State in case their enemies decided to take back the lost grounds.

Lexa pushed away from the desk. “We need to get home. Now”.

Indra seemed surprised. “Why?”

“We need to keep hitting them there. We need to contact Diyoza and I need to talk with Dante. This needs to stand – we can’t lose Colorado, our peace there needs to last until the very end”.

“Diyoza? Lexa, this woman…”

“This woman is dangerous and her group needs to be on our side at all times”, Lexa said with a sour look. “We are giving her permission to bomb the people she hates while getting some more of her support and cornering our main enemy around this district. We need a firm example that this war and battle and losses are worth it. This State needs to be our example”.

“Commander…”

“I’m doing it”, Lexa stated. “Find that pilot and his plane. We’re going home”.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My dear antifastist comrades. I am Greek. Golden Dawn is a fascist organization that has attacked migrands, murdered people, has terrorized movements and leftists, has a tone of history of organized crimes. Today was the day of the Verdict of a 5 year trial and the state's court was politically pressed by fucking thousands of people and the antifasism movement here had a huge victory.
> 
> Colden Dawn was found guilty for attacking mirgant communities and for murdering a dear antifascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas. We honest to god cried - we fucking cheered at the videos of his mother crying out in justice at last. Golden Dawn was determined a criminal organization. The sons of a bitch are going to the motherfucking jail at last.
> 
> Today is a good damn day for the movement, for the people, for our future. The demostrations were so glorious and so powerfull and the people were actually the ones who determined the Verdict. Today is marked as hope for our country and the movement.
> 
> I wanted to share the good news with you. Enjoy the double update ❤️

Clarke walked through the long halls of the hospital, passing seated people lined up against the white walls. Eyes fell on her, mindless gazes looked away. At the sight of her, bodies leaned forwards and curled inwards in themselves. The familiarity had her heart thumping in her chest steadily -calmly. This she could do, this she could understand.

“Hey, Doc”, her patient’s voice greeted her long before she saw the young man. Nick offered one of his half smiles and extended his casted hand towards her, trying and failing to hide some of the pain in his eyes. “Any chance you have a bed available for me?”

“I can find you one even though you don’t have to stay”, Clarke sat next to him, tried to offer a comforting smile. She felt the heaviness in it. “Medically speaking”.

He didn’t try to hide the way his shoulders curled in nor the way his eyes snapped to the end of the hallway, towards the waiting room and the exit. “I hear the hospital is one of the safest places to be in this city”.

“So are the bases”, she offered, blue eyes studying him, marveling at the way fear radiated out of him at the thought of walking out of the building. Clarke pursed her lips and slowly placed a warm palm on his knee, bringing his attention back to her. “You cannot keep living like this, Nick”.

He smiled –heavy and sad. “Not all of us are cut out for war, Doc. I will calm down when the whole thing is over, promise”.

Her heart squeezed painfully at the words and in another time, Clarke would have tried to convince him otherwise, she would have tried to make some life appear in his eyes. Not now, not when her eyes kept shifting over the faces around it, trying to memorize, trying to recognize.

“I can’t make any promises about the bed”, she said quietly and watched relief cover the muscles of his face. She softened. Nick was a good kid. “Your hand is improving but I still have to check up on it for a little while still. I’ll send someone to fetch you”.

“Thanks, Clarke”.

She nodded and stood and her eyes scanned the seated people. A group of four met her gaze straight back, their faces vague familiar to her –from the street or a general meeting or from the bases, judging by the assault rifles hanging from their hold. One of the women nodded at her as a greeting and Clarke tilted her head up towards her in a wordless reply to the gesture. The guy smiled back as if he personally knew her.

Clarke sighed and gently rolled her shoulders to ease some of the tension there and she thought of the pack of cigarettes in her locker, she thought of the awful coffee in the break room, she thought of the eyes looking up at her with hope and the need of some help or some advice. The only thing Clarke had to do was pick one of these distractions and get through the last hour of her shift.

The choice was taken by said group of four, who approached her slowly, eyes bright, faces open with questions Clarke doubted they’d be about her medical profession. A shudder threatened to cross down her back and Clarke felt her arm snap on her side, to press her gun against her ribs, just to feel its heavy presence. The butterfly knife in her boot seemed to burn in its recent new place there.

She didn’t bother moving towards them, the way she had paused was enough of an opening for them to keep approaching. Clarke licked her lips, looking at the people around and their uninterested gazes. Her blue eyes caught a pair of dark eyes staring at her and the black man straightened under her gaze but didn’t move away, didn’t took his hand off of the gun strapped to her hip. He wore the sign of the Coalition on his arm and Clarke sighed heavily, sure that this was one of Lexa’s guards posted to watch Clarke.

She hated the way her shoulders somehow relaxed at the sight of him.

“Huh, are you Clarke Griffin?”

Clarke felt way too old as she looked at the four pairs of shining eyes. They were not older than twenty three and the energy radiating around them had wiped itself away from Clarke years ago.

“May I help you with something?” Her voice was monotonous and low and tired and something turned off in their gazes, like they had expected something else.

“Huh, no, not really, we just…” the young girl was stammering and one of her friends nudged her with his elbow and they all had gentle wide eyes, offering some support to the anxious little thing in front of her.

It made warmth spread inside Clarke.

“We heard…” the guy took the reins and Clarke managed a smile at the blushing girl and, wow, it had been a while since someone had a crush on her like this. She turned her attention to the young guy speaking, feeling merciful for the awestruck kid. “We were there, basically, when you took down the museum and, well… it is… it’s good to see you doing well”.

Clarke kept the smile on her face and forced her eyes not to stray around to look at who heard the words. The hospital was secured –the hospital was safe.

The people though. Clarke couldn’t know every single person in here, couldn’t know of their thoughts, of their royalties, of their ideology, of their side in this war. Clarke sighed and thought of Lexa, of how her girlfriend would relax around total strangers, around people she’d never met, her first instinct to trust. Once upon a time, Clarke was like that as well.

“Thank you”, she heard herself say, not recognizing the words, her voice, her body. She stood in front of them and thought of Lexa and thought of large and gorgeous demonstrations, of celebrations and quiet music in an alley full of flowers in a clear night. She thought of her room in the Court House, the small net of countless thick hammocks pulled up in the part across the old Police Station. “I’m sure it was not as heroic as it is portaited though”.

Her thoughts were interrupted by flashes of rough hands and sadistic smirks and shadows following her down the street and the memory of Emerson’s head been blown back by the hand on her trembling hand.

The nervous girl seemed to find her voice and Clarke would have chuckled at the way her eyes checked her out. She felt _old,_ she felt like she was back in college. “It was… it was certainly something, Clarke… you did great damage to them and like, we got so much info from there for other bases, they are _so_ cornered now and there hadn’t been an attack since then, so yeah… it… you were amazing”.

Oh, Raven would have loved to be here to watch this.

Clarke actually cracked a genuine smile at the innocent praise and watched the girl gain some more of her confidence. Her friends had lightened up like Christmas trees and they had started to lightly back away to give them some space and Clarke bit back a chuckle. She needed to stop this before it got further though.

“I appreciate the words, really, but it… huh… it wasn’t as good as it sounds”, Clarke started, taking a step back, trying to communicate her disinterest to the girl with her gaze before using her words. “I’m glad it did some good…” A movement caught her eye from the end of the hallway and every word died on her tongue.

Echo steadily looked at her.

Clarke felt every muscle in her body lock up.

“Excuse me”, she mumbled to the confused girl, walking away without a glance or a pause or another word. The woman straightened her back as Clarke approached and the blonde caught sight of her hand caressing the handgun on her hip for a single moment before it darted away.

“Doctor Clarke”.

“Echo”.

“We need to talk”.

“Come with me”.

They walked up the stairs, walking through hall after hall until the amount of people around them lessened and Clarke finally stopped in front of an empty room, right next to the second break room, which was always hosting someone from the staff. She let Echo walk in first before following, closing the door behind her to lean on it for support.

The bruises were only hints on the woman’s face by now but the side of her face had scarred. Her hair was a light brown color, falling down her shoulders and back in soft waves, the locks looking soft. The ragged clothes were replaced by tight dark green pants with multiple pockets, a grey thick sweater and black combat boots with tight lashes. A thick belt on her waist held a radio and a holster, there was a watch on one of her wrists and a heavy backpack on her back. A leather jacket was thrown on and Clarke realized that Echo was a very, very beautiful woman. The commanding aura around her reminded Clarke of Lexa and for a moment she wondered if Echo was a member of the Coalition as well.

“You look good”, Echo said, dragging her eyes back up to Clarke’s face again. They’d been studying each other for a while.

“So do you”.

“Reapers are looking for you”.

Clarke nodded slowly, tried to gulp down her worry. She wanted those cigarettes. “I am aware of the stories going around”.

“Good, because it doesn’t stop there, I have been watching some of them and…”

“You _what_?”

Echo had not moved an inch from the spot she had stood on when they stepped into the room. “I was taken in by the Coalition, I was questioned of the information I gave them in the basement while we were held and then I was offered this job. I was an investigator before the war and they told me to continue the job for them”.

“An investigator?”

“Private investigator, yes, the Coalition hired me to find connection between known Reapers and other people living in the city. Last night, I came upon one of their bases –a small one, a few files here and there, no people inside”. Echo finally shifted on her feet. “One of the files was about you. You were marked down with red ink as; armed and dangerous”.

Clarke breathed out. Hollowly chuckled. “That’s funny”.

Echo lifted an eyebrow and the corner of her mouth picked up. “The file didn’t say much but I think there are more to it. A few photos of you in…”

“ _What?_ ”

“Shush. They were photos from the basement. Apparently, we were written down and photographed. So I found a few of those photos, your apartment and hospital’s addresses, a car and a motorcycle filed under your name”.

“And that’s it?”

“That’s what was in the office. But considering the _armed and dangerous_ quote and remembering that son of a motherfucking bitch, Emerson, I believe they know more of you –or at least they believe you are someone of great importance for the war or the movement or something”.

Clarke scratched at her eyebrow, feeling her headache growing. “Emerson thought there was something more”.

Echo nodded. “But he wasn’t the boss. He was reporting to someone. I believe you should contact the patrol chiefs, get some protection”.

The blonde let her head fall back on the door with a dull _thud_. “I think they are already following me”.

Echo’s eyes snapped up to meet her gaze. She took a step closer. “Are you sure?”

“No. But I feel like I am being watched”.

“Lay low for a while”.

Clarke laughed at her face, pushed off the door. “Yeah, right”.

“Clarke…”

“Look, Echo, I appreciate the heads up, I really do. I will contact with the chiefs but if Reapers know where I live or who I am, then nothing I do will change it”. A thought nudged her mind and she gulped down heavily. “I will talk to my family”, she added, softening. “Thank you”.

Echo shrugged. “Look at it like me repaying you for getting me out of there”.

“Repaying is such an emotionless word”.

“I am not an emotional person”.

She huffed, remembering the punches. “Whatever helps you sleep at night, Echo”.

“Anything else I might find I will contact you”.

Clarke nodded, moved away from the door to let the woman out. “Thanks again”.

“Sure”.

“Clarke!”

“There you are, asshole, this hospital is fucking _huge_ ”.

“Language, Raven”.

“Sorry, Mama G.”

Echo sent a side look at Clarke and walked away without a glance at her friends and her mother, making them instantly suspicious. Octavia stepped next to Clarke with a frown as she watched Echo walk away with a confident strut in her wide steps. “Who is that?”

“Just a friend”, Clarke mumbled, her mind spinning with thoughts and a headache.

“Clarke” Raven placed a hand on her arm in an uncharacteristically soft gesture. “You don’t have any other friends”.

It brought a weak chuckle out of her, the worry vanishing lightly from her muscles. A shudder passed down her back at the reminder of Echo checking her broken ribs and breathing patens in the darkness of the museum’s basement.

“What are you guys doing here?”

“Oh, we are here to take you to Harper’s”.

“Again? That’s the third time this week”.

“Come on, the neighborhood is great”.

“Get off your ass, Griffin, you’re not staying in again”.

“My shift is not over, guys”.

“Well, it’s not like Kane is paying you”.

Clarke glared. “I still have patients to check”.

Bless whatever god existed, her pager starting beeping right that second to complete her sentence and strengthen her point. Raven threw her head back with a long groan and Octavia rolled her eyes while Clarke laughed at the both. Abby lightly smiled as she walked to the break room, watching her daughter visibly relax among the other two young women.

“Come on, I’ll walk you out, tell you about this girl who tried to adorably hit on me”.

“What?!”

“Oh my God, _what_?”

“When did this _happen?!_ ”

“Like ten minutes ago”.

“NO”, Raven wailed miserably. “Octavia, why are you always late?!”

“I’m the one being late?! I stood by and _waited_ for you to get off of Anya–“

“For fuck’s sake, if you were there on time it wouldn’t _matter_ how long I spent on Anya–“

“I don’t know how the concept of time works for you, Raven, but–“

Clarke’s uncontrollable laughter halted when her eyes caught movement again and for the second time in the last fifteen minutes, she stood completely still for a couple of seconds at the sight in front of her. But unlike the tight anxiety that launched at her stomach at the sight of Echo, the sharpened joy of seeing Lexa standing near the open doors of the entrance of the hospital couldn’t compare to anything else today.

Lexa gasped in surprise when Clarke’s body collided with her own and a pair of arms wrapped around her shoulders. They stumbled back by the force of the hug and the Commander’s own arms snapped around Clarke’s waist, gripping her close, pulling her in with needing desperation. Relived to have her back home, Clarke laughed in Lexa’s neck, releasing tension from her chest to breathe in her girl’s familiar scent, closing her eyes against the cold skin, placing a greeting kiss there.

Lexa’s voice was muffled by the fabric of her new medical robe, but Clarke spotted the surprised tone in the words, “You cut your hair”.

Clarke laughed again, softer, quieter, private, before pulling back to meet the green eyes she’d missed so much. “I did”, she whispered, feeling a smile growing, warmth spreading through her body, her legs growing weak from having Lexa so close. “Do you like it?”

The bright grin that appeared on Lexa’s beautiful face had Clarke swooning, fighting against the urge to shut her eyes in pleasure when long fingers comped through the short blond waving strands of hair.

“It’s very beautiful”, Lexa whispered.

Clarke smiled, bit her own lip, caressed Lexa’s face with her eyes, reminding herself of every detail. “When did you come back?” she asked quietly, lifting a hand to softly wipe away a smear of dirt on Lexa’s jaw. With the corner of her eye, Clarke spotted a baffle bag on the floor near Lexa’s boots.

“Just now”.

“You came straight away–“

“Hey, guys, sorry to interrupt the sweetness and all”, Octavia said with a smirk as she pressed _uncomfortably_ close, “but we think we spotted the girl that has this crush on Clarke and this is a _gold_ ”.

Both of Lexa’s eyebrows nearly reached her hairline and Clarke laughed, leaning half on Octavia and half on Lexa. Said girl seemed devastated as she stared at Lexa’s arm around Clarke’s waist, the way they had fitted together effortlessly. Her three friends seemed desperate to hold back laughter and keep on a comforting face.

“I’m, what, gone for a week and people are already asking for your hand, Clarke?”

“I know, right? It has been so _fucking_ long since someone made a move on Clarke–“

“Do not finish this sentence, Reyes, I am standing right here”.

“Oh, shoot, right”.

“I mean; not that I blame them but still–“

“Lexa, you little… Alright, enough of that, all of you”.

“But damn, Griffin, the girl is cute–“

“Way too young, Raven”.

“Still cute though”.

“Cuter than Anya?”

“ _Way_ cuter than Anya”.

“I’m telling her that”.

“Don’t be a traitor, Lexa”.

“Baby, no, we don’t want to be the object of Anya’s wrath”.

“And, for the record, Anya is not, in any way, cute. It’s why I’m with her. You can tell her _that,_ you motherfucking ass–”

“Alright, that is enough”, Clarke laughed, moving a hand from Lexa’s shoulder to slap Raven’s arm in a warning. “This is getting out of control. Do not you have to get to a party?”

“You’re not coming I presume”.

“Oh, she is definitely coming, just not with us”.

“Raven!”

“I will fire you from the revolution, Raven”.

The mechanic loudly laughed, head thrown back, an arm wrapped around Octavia’s shoulders to keep her body on its full height. Octavia bit back her own laugh and was smart enough to drag Raven away from the couple, shooting a wave on the way out. Clarke was free to wrap her arms around Lexa and let her girlfriend melt against her.

“I’m off in about half an hour”.

“I will wait”.

“You don’t have to”.

“Clarke”, Lexa whispered in her neck. “I want to”.

“Okay”. Clarke leaned down and took greeting kiss, feeling her heart thumping in her chest wildly. “I’m glad you are home”.

“I missed you”.

“I missed you too. You’ll wait here?”

“I’ll be outside with Gustus”.

“See you in a bit then”.

She had just started walking away when Lexa called her name. She turned, meeting a cheeky smile and bright green eyes lifting up her body. “It is a delight to watch you walk away, my love”.

“What the fuck, Lexa?” Clarke busted out laughing loudly and every single worry, every frustration vanishing from her mind and body. Lexa laughed with Clarke and waved her off, turning to walk out of the hospital building. “Idiot”, Clarke whispered to herself, getting back to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of course the antifascism movement is only beginning but there was hope today for the first time in this whole fucked up year. So cheers, world, today we have one less fascism criminal organization to deal with. So double update because i am a happy human being today.
> 
> There is a slogan we shout in demostrations; Neither in the court nor with laws, fascism is only destroyed in the streets. (it rhymes in greek let me be)
> 
> I urge you to take a few moments to get to know about Pavlos Fyssas. Some of his songs have english subtitles on youtube.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writer's block, guys, sorry for the big wait and if this a bit messy. Reminder that this story is a dark one!
> 
> Also I think I will try to conclute this at about chapter 35 or 37? I find it kind of looooong - i haven't written something equally as big - but I have been enjoying it so far. However, I believe it deserves a closure somewhere and even though I don't have something in mind yet, I will be trying to find ways to wrap it up before it loses itself. Let me know what you think?
> 
> Anyway, the reunion keeps on with this fluff. A few memories from Lexa's part in the early days of the war, tell me your thoughts on that. Also, tell me about how you think Clarke's recovery is set so far. PTSD is a bitch to write and I feel I am rushing it a bit. No idea. Tell me your throughts so I get past this block.
> 
> Take care from the Corona thingy, my country is put into a quarantine again and the sons of a bitch do nothing for the hospitals, man, capitalism tires me to no end with its political choices. You all wash your hands and wear your masks!
> 
> Anyway, end of rambling, enjoy this messy chapter.

“So you’ll be leaving again?” Clarke frowned down at the small plastic bottle she had been kicking with her boots for the last few feet. She had an urge to bend down and grab it, look for a trash can to throw it in but the biggest part of her… well.

“No, not really, my job will be done from here”, Lexa said, her eyes looking around at the uncountable people walking around. It was a change, walking from the hospital to the Court House rather to Clarke’s apartment, but Lexa fully embraced it, able to take a moment and look at this different part of town. The Leader of the American Revolution had been living in Washington DC for thirteen long months now and she still hadn’t been able to see the whole city.

There were food stands in every corner and block, the social workers huddled close to the various fire pits and hearths set up around. Lexa had forgotten the fact that they were still in the middle of the winter, her eyes taking in the slippery ice and the frozen snow in the sideways, against the walls of the buildings. A million things and problems rose through her mind at the thought of their food situation but Lexa knew if something was wrong in this department, Anya would have informed her.

Lexa could only trust her cousin she had this under control and could provide to the people what they needed. Despite Anya’s indifferent exterior, the woman was fully synchronized with the people’s needs, spotting them out in an instant. A few hours of driving around the city had Anya coming back to the Council with a list of needed supplies for each part of town.

 _No one seemed completely miserable_ ; Lexa thought as she walked with Clarke’s cold gloved hand in her own in the warm interior of her coat’s pocket. Sure, the people were constantly looking around, were constantly eyeing their surroundings and they were curled up in themselves due to the cold and anxiety but the Commander noted how they were all wearing winter clothes, noted the blankets wrapped around their forms, the soft light of life in the eyes of the groups of more than four or five people. From somewhere, Lexa heard faint laughter. There was not a single homeless ball of limps in the sidewalks or in the entrance of an apartment building.

Lexa’s eyes caught sight of the Court House and, after a moment, in the distance, the dark remnant of what was left of the White House. She shuddered at the memory of smoke and ash in her mouth, gunpowder and gasoline in her nose, of the raging fire that had swallowed the building up in only a couple of seconds. She had stood there on the cracked sidewalk a year ago; clutching at an assault rifle, which felt too heavy –too cold in her hand. The thudding echo of gunfire and screams and explosions had shot through her. She had stood on the sidewalk, had watched the aircraft slicing the sky, the sound of it overwhelming everything else. The narrow bombs had being spat out of its mechanical belly in an instant.

Lexa remembered the groundbreaking explosion, the way she had _sprinted_ forward with the rest of their rebels because no, no, _no_ , _no_ , _their main target was crumbling in pieces, was being enveloped in wild flames, like a log thrown in a fireplace_.

They had rounded the corner just as the White House crumbled like a castle made of sand, taking down every information Lexa wished for, taking down the very people she had wished to question about everything and anything, taking down every little dark secret and piece of information Lexa wished to show the world.

The numbing roar of anger Anya had let out expressed both of them.

The aircraft had flown away and Lexa hadn't had to spit out the next order in the radio. When the aircraft had come right back, it’d been met with a missile of their own; a missile sprinting up from their ground defense systems, the stolen –very precious weaponry. Lexa hadn’t flinched that time when her missile had hit the aircraft and blown it up, wrapped it in a tight embrace of fire and smoke, taking it down to the rebel army. That had been the last attack of the day.

The next day, they had managed to drop five more bombs on Pentagon, destroying the building in another instant. The falling aircrafts seemed mocking that day and no one had celebrated the handlers’ precise aim of the defense system.

“Lexa?”

Lexa blinked, realizing she had stopped walking, lost in the images living in her head. There was a statue of the American flag placed in front of the dark remains, in front of the monument that was going to be built there. The people had placed flowers on the dark marble; all of it buried under snow and ice now. It’d melt away. Many more flowers would be placed there again in the years to come – whatever the end of this war.

“ _Lexa_?” Clarke frowned with worry, pulling at her hand in Lexa’s pocket and brought her other hand up to the woman’s face, watching her girlfriend’s grey eyes return in the present, refocusing on their surroundings. “Hey”.

“Hey”, Lexa huffed out tiredly and sent an apology with her eyes. “I’m okay”.

“You sure?”

“My head is tired”.

Clarke smiled softly, leaning up in the middle of the small crowd of moving people to kiss the Commander. Lexa shuddered and kissed her back, humming at the feeling of warm lips against her own.

“Let’s get you inside”.

Lexa tagged at Clarke’s trapped hand, the one in the jacket’s pocket and in the long slender fingers, which tightened their hold. Clarke lifted and eyebrow as Lexa leaned in again, stealing one more kiss, just to feel the softness of her girlfriend’s mouth on her own. She shuddered again, partly from the cold, partly from the missed feeling.

The blue eyes seemed brighter than any other time Lexa had seen her and she could not help but wonder if Clarke got more beautiful each passing day.

“Well”, Clarke smiled but did not move away.

“I missed you”, Lexa whispered again and watched as Clarke melted right there. Her trapped hand tightened its own hold in the jacket’s pocket.

“I love you”, Clarke answered instead.

Lexa felt her heart skip a couple of needed beats, warmth filling her chest at the side smile on the blonde’s pretty lips. She took another moment in the cold, a moment to close her eyes and lean her forehead on Clarke’s.

New memories for this cracked sidewalk.

The four guards seemed surprised to see Lexa, but they were quick to greet her back in the Court House, finally seeing the two women together after only having heard of their relationship. The four men were friends of Lincoln, known faces in the city from their place in patrol and the army itself. Three out of four had their black face masks on and completely coving their features, the last one only having his hood on. Sniper rifles were placed next to them, handguns placed on their hips, packs on their backs; they seemed geared up for a fight rather than standing in simple guard.

They had to do a double take at the sight of a paper box resting in the middle of the four of them. There were seven tiny creatures in there, softly meowing at one another as they tried to crawl out of the cocoon of blankets and towels they’d been wrapped in against the cold.

Clarke grinned and laughed and leaned down to pock a kitten on the head. It tried to bite the gloved finger and the one of the four men let out a muffled chuckle, a pair of brown eyes glistering with a happy spark.

“We’re trying to get the families”, one of them quietly said with a hoarse voice and Lexa snapped out of her trace at the unfamiliar but kind sound. “Spread the word”.

“You got it”, Clarke nodded before tagging Lexa towards the entrance. “But I suggest you get them inside before they freeze or something. They don’t want the cocoons”.

“You doesn’t want a cocoon?”

“Cats, dude. Weird animals, you force them to do something for their own good and they almost eat you in revenge”, another muffled voice replied, the only pair of light colored eyes rolled in a sight of exasperation.

Clarke and Lexa left them to their bickering, stepping passed the open space of the front gardens of the Court House, taking in the covered windows and cracked walls.

The commander nudged Clarke. “When did you become a vet?”

Clarke laughed and knocked her shoulder on the teasing brunette, enough to make her feet stumble over a step. “Fuck you”.

Lexa ducked her head, grinning under the dark red scarf.

“I’m staying in your room”, Clarke said and Lexa smiled, finally taking her cold hands out of her pockets to freely lance them with Clarke’s. The doctor in Clarke bit her tongue to keep from cursing her out for not wearing damn gloves.

They passed the wide entrance, both of them greeting the people inside, the rebels offering back nods and a few words, quick to bury themselves in thick warm clothes, sleeping bags and blankets, their laughter clipped and shaking along with the rest of their cold bodies. Candles and small hearths were placed around, a couple of small windows were cracked open to recycle the air inside the building, let the smoke out. Lanterns hang around the walls to cast light in the rooms with the candles and Lexa picked one up to take to their room as they passed between handmade shelves and bookcases and pulled up desks.

One side of the stairs was used as storage of their own for all kinds of weapons and gear. On the other side, the passage up covered with a thick layer of dust and mud and melted ice, making it slippery. The hallways of the first floor had been also filled with desks packed with stuff for battle; helmets, boxes of bullets, pistols, grenades and bulletproof vests. There was a young man passed out under one of those desks, his snores companying them to the side, to the section of private offices.

When Clarke first moved in the Court House, leaving her compromised apartment, she didn’t know why she hadn’t expected Lexa having her own room there. But the Commander had claimed a big office as her bedroom and Lincoln had led her to it without a second thought, letting her stare at the King sized bed in the middle with wide eyes and a parted mouth. She didn’t even want to _know_ how the hell this huge thing had been put up there and how Lexa had managed to get it.

The sheets smelled like Lexa and Clarke had peacefully slept eight long hours the first night there.

The bookcases had been mostly empty when Clarke had moved in, a section of them holding a few of Lexa’s worn out books; their smooth white pages smelling like wood and wet dirt; blue ink staining the sides, lines of black words being underlined by the same color, Lexa’s handwriting marking down notes and references and tiny stars to draw attention to a few parts. Pieces of other paper rested between the pages, parts and ripped pieces of old newspapers, various flyers, receipts holding notes and even more questions about certain lines.

Lexa’s clothes were thrown in duffle bags on the floor, on a chair by the corner of the room. A desk was resting under the window; flyers and books and pens, folders, a lot of keys and a lot of knives, two handguns, notebooks and empty plastic bottles of water covering its surface. And candles, so many candles in this room, placed in every surface around, a faint scent of melted wax hovering in the air of the room.

Clarke had completely fallen in love with Lexa’s messy room as much as she’d fallen for the woman owning it. She hadn’t brought much with her; her clothes, her own books, memories held by objects; Bellamy’s porcelain cups, Octavia’s old basketball, a folder of Raven’s notes about some project she did in college and had earned her a scholarship, Finn’s old awful drawing of the White House, her father’s clothes and so many damn broken clocks, her mother’s old folder of photographs. They had found a place to the corner of the room, inside a single duffle bag that rested in a shelf of the enormous bookcase of the office.

Looking at it now, Clarke felt tears sting her eyes.

Lexa didn’t let them form completely, letting her bag fall on the floor and taking her face in her hands for a long greeting kiss, making Clarke moan quietly as the tension slipped from their bodies. In this kiss, the blonde poured relief of having Lexa back in one piece, her hands coming up to wrap around Lexa in a loose hug, fingers locking around the fabric of her coat.

Clarke whispered as they parted for a breath. “Take me to bed so I can welcome you home properly”.

Lexa paused, her grey eyes scanning Clarke’s face for anything out of place. Clarke softly sighed, leaning up to kiss her again, biting down to make her point, pressing up against the brunette, feeling her breath, feeling her heart wildly beat. Lexa hummed in pleasure in her mouth and strong arms wrapped around her waist, leading Clarke back to the huge bed, slowly helping her lay down.

“I’m okay”, Clarke said in Lexa’s neck before kissing her skin, feeling the woman sigh heavily against her, her body completely slacking as soon as the blonde bit down on the sensitive spot there. “I’m okay. I want you”.

Lexa sighed heavily, nodding, turning her head to the side to give Clarke’s mouth a better access down her neck. Fingers grasped at thick clothes, pulling, needing them off. It didn’t take long to shred them and, as soon as Lexa was back onto the bed and leaning over Clarke, the blonde’s lips were quick to travel down her skin to her pointy collarbones, her hands were eager to map out her back, her hips, her ass, her thighs, her legs.

Clarke didn’t waste any time from letting her fingers find the heat between Lexa’s legs, exhaling loudly against paler skin at the sensation of Lexa dripping. The simple feel of her had warmth shooting right up between Clarke's legs as well and she couldn’t help but lean up and take Lexa’s lips in another kiss, drinking in the quiet moans, biting down at the lower fuller lip. The Commander’s breathing pattern broke as a finger slipped inside.

Lexa’s arm snaked under Clarke’s head, holding the other woman close, her free hand gripping at the woman’s sweater as pleasure waved through her with each movement of Clarke’s hand. Hips ducked forward and another finger slipped in, making her muscles tense –closer to an orgasm. Smirking against her neck, Clarke brought her free hand up from Lexa’s ass to her hair, pulling the long strands of hair and making the other woman’s body tremble violently in sudden pain and pleasure.

“Come for me”, Clarke whispered in Lexa’s ear and closed her eyes as her girl did just that; because that was it for Lexa; the blonde's voice was deep and hoarse and commanding around the three words and her walls clenching around Clarke’s fingers, a layer of sweat breaking out on her skin, her breathing cracking softly. “Good”.

Lexa dropped on the bed next to Clarke, a shaky hand coming up her own forehead to wipe away the sweat there and the blonde was quick to reach down at bring up the blankets to wrap them up around Lexa’s shuddering body.

The Commander breathlessly laughed. “What was that?”

“I missed you”, Clarke smirked, settling down next to her after taking off her own sweater and bra, wanting to fully feel Lexa against her. “I am so going to tease you about how fast that was by the way. What was it? Five minutes?”

Lexa playfully groaned and Clarke chuckled, leaning up to place a kiss on her jaw. 

“Shut up”, Lexa placed a kiss on cold lips, tongue and teeth taking over. She brought a hand up, cold palm skipping under warm clothes and feeling Clarke arch up into the touch.

A firm hand took a hold of Lexa's stopping the movements. “You don't have to”.

“But–“

“You are exhausted. Go to sleep”.

“But–“

“Shush. I will be here when you wake up”.

Lexa sighed and cursed her eyes that were already closing heavily and Clarke’s body against her own was warm and comforting and her muscles were peacefully slacking on the soft bed. She could only offer a nod and a smile, when Clarke leaned up to place a kiss on her temple, letting herself finally doze off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The kitten part is a true story from one of my college's conquests. Minus the masks and rifles and all, but true story and goddamn, my friends, the guys taking care of them were so damn cute and attractive, my bi weak self couldn't handle it.
> 
> If there are any mistakes, please point them out so I can change them. Thank you.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cute flashbacks of the early days. Enjoy!
> 
> (But really I just had some Costia and Luna feels and yeah...)

Clarke jogged through the dorms, a half-empty spray can in one hand and a cupcake in the other. She sent another thankful prayer to whatever had directed Luna to her room with that paper box of baked goods, knowing that if it wasn’t for the girl, both Clarke and Raven would go to sleep later tonight with empty stomachs.

It was pounding and her socks had only barely started to dry up inside the worn out Vans she had put on that morning. The skies had opened up during the protest but it did nothing to halt the cops from darting forwards into the crowd with the damned batons out. Clarke was one of the lucky ones – stealing an hour to run to the room for a change of clothes and a quick phone call to everyone she’d lost sight of amidst the rain and flashing police sirens.

“ _We need to go back to the Station!_ ”

“ _It is pounding!_ ”

They were shouting.

Fucking great.

Clarke rounded the last corner, nearly crashing on some student’s back. His shoulder blades stared back at her face mockingly and Clarke exhaled heavily, placing a tilted wrist against his wet jacket to gently push him to the side and slide between him and the rest of the gathered people. He glanced down at her with empty eyes and moved out of her way swiftly.

“Excuse me”, she whispered over and over, pushing between bodies wrapped in wet and cold clothes and medical training kicked in Clarke’s mind with a million warnings for their soaked clothes in autumn.

Most of them parted away right away, recognition flashing in their gazes as soon as she came into view. A few did a double take on the lack of the familiar backpack that should have been on her shoulders and that had saved most of them from the effect of tear gas and the threat of a cracked head. It was nowhere in sight now and there was a smear of dry blood on Clarke Griffin’s cheek; the sight along making everyone stop mumbling.

Clarke didn’t notice the stares as she slipped to the front of the crowd, her blue eyes finding Raven right away in the middle of the cafeteria, sitting on a cracked table, her back leaning against Luna’s chest. They spotted her at the same time, waving Clarke over as she inspected the scene.

A man – Jack – was standing in the middle of the room, his fists clenched and his face red with anger and frustration. He had started this group of people in the last year in college, organizing most of the protests in the university. Leftists and energetic small group of folks, from all over the courses and classes, with an obvious appreciation to this Coalition and the idea of political unities. Clarke liked them and their ambition to and for the anti-imperialistic movement but they did shout a lot when things did not go their way.

Across from Jack stood Riley, all blond hair and darling face and dried blood staining the front of his wet shirt. His nose was purple and he needed to get it watched right this second and have it set back in place but if this guy was one thing, then he was a stubborn son of a bitch. There was another bruise to the side of his face and Clarke was glad he was here rather than inside the police station.

“They have our people”, Jack was saying as Clarke passed by him to get to her dear friends, who looked ready to doze off on the cracked table and in the very middle of a general meeting. Raven had dark circles under her eyes in the last two weeks and Luna wasn’t in the best shape as well, too worn out by the hours spent to write the amount of flyers needed for the demonstrations.

“We don’t know who they have yet and, fuck, Jack, we are beat”.

“We cannot leave them alone in there!”

Clarke popped up on the table by Raven’s leg, nudging the crutches out of the way to sit properly. The spray can felt heavy in her hand all of the sudden and she lowered it to the surface of the table watching the black paint staining her fingers.

Another damn swastika out of fucking nowhere. Clarke had lost count of how many they had painted over in the last week alone. She had lost count of the amounts of times Clarke had caught sight of one of them in the college building’s hallways and outdoor walls and fences. The spray paints had become her best fucking comrade in the last month, one of them always in her pack or in her hand. Like now.

“You good?” Raven asked quietly, her smart eyes shut closed as she rested against her girlfriend. Luna had wrapped a blanket around the brunette, tiredly leaning her head on top of Raven’s.

“I’m good”, Clarke answered, reaching for her cupcake and taking a life-saving bite. It filled her mouth with chocolate and sugar and pieces of cookies and for a moment, a wave of adrenaline washed off of her, leaving Clarke unbalanced and numb with iron exhaustion.

“I suggest a demonstration in the center of the town”, a third voice spoke up. Sarah had stood from her seat on another table across from Clarke, the color of the graffiti on the wooden surface keeping the blonde’s eyes for a moment before they shifted to the speaking woman. Sarah was also studying medicine – a year younger than the blonde and a total rebellious spirit, untamed and free and brilliant. Clarke wouldn’t mind spending a night or two with her.

“Away from the Police Station”.

“What is the point of that?”

“Well, people will know what happened. Downtown doesn’t close up for another two hours and the traffic is a nightmare. We can hold a demonstration in the main streets and between the vehicles. Spread out flyers”.

“Again, what is the point of that?” Jack could very well be fuming in his anger.

Sarah narrowed her eyes, a hand waving through painted black and purple loose hair and pushing them back in a contained mess and–

Clarke jumped in utter surprise and shock when Raven kicked her with a pointy knee, glimmering brown eyes rolling in exasperation. Behind the useless being of a best friend, Luna was snickering with a knowing smirk aimed at the poor blonde student.

“Man, you are drooling”, Raven said with a laugh, not even trying to lower her voice for the occasion. Many of their co-students were being held inside the police station and here Rave was, making inappropriate comments to Clarke equally inappropriate behavior.

“I should have left you in the street, Reyes”.

Luna laughed louder as Raven eased back onto her with a wide teasing grin.

Sarah was talking again, voice a bit higher from before, in unapologetic frustration. “I am just saying, we cannot get them out on our own, we need many more people to embrace this and learn what happened. We had a peaceful demonstration about the peace and they smashed us like we were… I do not know. People need to know what happened”.

“We can very well do this outside the Police Station”.

“Dude, cops were injured”, Riley rolled his green eyes. “They won’t be kind with us standing outside the Precinct and screaming at them. They can close off the whole area with a couple of vans or something and trap us in the middle, hit us again”.

“I am with Sarah in this”, Raven spoke up from her place on the table. Smart brown eyes looked around at the nodding heads and the student eased back, content that the useless argument would be close up for something useful.

Jack rolled his eyes, angered eyes meeting Raven’s calm ones, before his gaze trailed down to the half leg resting on the surface of the table. Clarke’s back snapped up in a straight line, blue eyes flashing with a warning and a challenge having recognized the way he tightened his jawline and thought of commenting on her friend’s disability in a totally inappropriate way.

“Say what you are thinking and it won’t end well for you”, Raven snarled instead of Clarke and they both tensed as they waited the guy to actually speak his mind.

Jack seemed to feel the weight of so many eyes on him and quickly shook his head, turning to the side and falling into another rant about the Police Station and why it was needed to get there in solidary for the people inside. Something had hardened in Sarah’s eyes this time and after she let him speak for a while, she called for a vote by the gathered people.

They were going for a demonstration downtown. Done and settled.

“I have flyers ready”, Luna was saying, slipping out from behind Raven to stand by the backpack on the floor, taking out her laptop.

“Do not take this with you”, Raven pointed out and Luna nodded, placing a kiss on the mechanic’s jean-covered knee as it hung next to her head.

“I’m going back to the dorm to get the med kits”, Clarke mumbled and _god_ , she was so very tired by the constant fighting on the streets of the last week.

“Someone needs to stay behind”, Riley was shouting over the moving people. “The building is still under conquest! Guys! Who are staying?!”

Clarke was tempted but the anxiety she would have for her fellow students in the pounding air and in the middle of the streets again, wouldn’t be the best thing for her at the moment.

“I am!” Raven called out from her sitting position. The names begun rolling after that and Clarke eased as she eyed the large forming groups of people that would stay to hold the campus safe.

“Anything happens, you call me”, Raven pocked a finger in Luna’s collarbone before leaning in for a sweet kiss. Brown eyes then turned to Clarke and hardened slightly. “You too, Griffin. Be safe out there”.

“Don’t I get a kiss?”

“Ask Sarah for one”.

Clarke’s head snapped around to see if anyone heard. “Jesus, Raven”.

Luna laughed, tagging at the blonde’s elbow. “Let’s go, Clarke. Don’t burn down the building, baby”.

“No promises!”

Clarke shook her head. “I just need to run to the room for a bit”.

Her friend nodded and gestured to the laptop under her armpit. “I need to print the flyers. Meet you outside?”

“Bring an umbrella this time!” Clarke uselessly remembered to call out to the woman but she knew it was a fruitless effort. The obsession Luna had with water was getting out of hand at times.

Clarke had been right. When the half of the student community met with the other half in the gates of the university campus, Luna was already soaked to the bone in her raincoat and boots, standing under a narrow hallway ceiling and talking away on the phone. She sneakily snapped a picture and sent it to Raven.

 **Clarke Griffin (17:38)** : your girl will be sick tomorrow

 **Raven Reyes (17:38)** : Jesus…

 **Raven Reyes (17:38)** : I told her to bring an umbrella.

 **Clarke Griffin (17:39)** : same you know it is no use

 **Raven Reyes (17:40)** : Be careful out there. We got word they’ve arrested twelve.

As soon as Clarke read the text, a speaker cracked to life and static filled the air for a moment before Sarah’s voice echoed through it, calling for attention. The pounding rain had calmed a bit, making it easier to move and see through. A mass of umbrellas spread across a great land of the front of the campus’s ground, hundreds of students gathered behind tall banners that marked the subject of their studies. Their athletes to the front leading the demonstration, fellow students studying law and psychology and English and Literatures coming after, giving place to the medical courses where Clarke found herself in, and then the engineers and mathematicians and electricians finishing up the body of the protest.

A good formation – a practical one that had saved them a million times in the past by the rough hits of the oppressing police forces. As soon as they thought the cops were gearing up to attack the protest, the athletes would call out a warning, tightening up a protective wall of muscled limps and built up vigor and quick reflexes. Clarke didn’t know how many times that dirty blonde younger girl with the gymnastics scholarship had kicked away metallic tubes of tear gas.

A soon as the cops came in close the law students would take over, megaphones and speakers shouting in every single direction; speaking to the watching people around in the city, to the rest of the students that were about to get their asses handed to them by the riot cops, to the officers themselves – trying to get out of an attack and keep the demonstration going until its marked conclusion.

If they didn’t get out of this with peaceful words and the protest was indeed hit by police forces, athletes held their ground and giving time to the rest of the students to pull back a few steps, medical students parting and spreading so they could be in every single place someone injured would fall down. At the same time, tight lines of engineers and mechanics and chemists surrounded the rest of the protests on the sides, holding the school borrowed tools and hardware and gears and turning into a damn army of protection and defense.

By then, the choices were two. One, the protest stood its ground against the Tasers and the tear gas and the batons until there was a break in the police formation for them to push through and get a bit more crowd covered so the people could breathe for a moment. Usually, the gathered people of the city joined in the shouting, there would be live streaming videos all over social media, and a word would come to the earpieces of the cops for them to back off as the solidarity and anger rose up from all over the damn planet.

Two, the cops broke through the defense lines of students and the protest was tore apart with people running to every direction before getting able to get back together and reform a group behind a banner.

Option two was the most usual one these days. And under this damned rain? Well… Clarke kind of dreaded to get out in the streets for a second time today but it wasn’t a choice she could make. They needed their twelve people out of the Precinct before the sun rose tomorrow.

 **Clarke Griffin (17:43)** : anyone we know?

 **Raven Reyes (17:43)** : No idea. We don’t have names yet.

 **Raven Reyes (17:44)** : I will text you.

 **Raven Reyes (17:46)** : And I swear to God if you don’t call me after it is over I will honestly kill you Clarke.

 **Clarke Griffin (17:47)** : love you too

 **Clarke Griffin (17:47)** : I will call

 **Raven Reyes (17:48)** : Get the sons of a bitch.

 **Raven Reyes (17:28)** : If they want a World War III they will have to fight us first.

Clarke chuckled down at her phone and looked up just in time to see Sarah coming to stand next to her with a deep sigh and an even deeper frown. Brown eyes looked over at Clarke under the dark grey and wet hood of the sweatshirt she wore and the blonde tilted the phone to the girl to show her the message, because Sarah was one of the most passionate anti-war students in college and was cute as hell.

Clarke got a surprised laugh from the woman and a soft eye roll and took it as a win for the exhausting day.

-

Lexa stifled a groan as her leg ached slightly on the way she walked. There really was no patience left in her body to think about the stained left ankle, not when the clock on the concrete wall had finally beeped 17:00. Long fingers had grown stiff from the seemingly endless hours of operating the cutting machine, which honestly could not be louder than this. The brunette was fairly sure she could hear the vibrating sounds of them in her sleep.

The locker room was filled with people switching shifts. Workers slipping out of their uniforms and into warm clothes and workers slipping out of warm clothes and right back into their uniforms.

“Hey”, Costia had a tired smile and downcast eyes, but she still reached over to give Lexa’s shoulder a greeting squeeze. “Didn’t see you a lot today”.

She nodded, taking a seat at the bench in front of her locker and taking out the firm boots. They were covered in wood detritus and dirt. Lexa didn’t dare move them too much and get it everywhere in the lockers’ floor – not that in mattered, every inch of this place was covered in timber debris. God, she needed a bath.

“They got me covering Phil’s spot”, she mumbled as she took off the uniform. It left her in a long-sleeved shirt and a pair of soft jeans and even those had a thin layer of dirt into them. So much about not dirtying the floor.

The smile on Costia’s face somehow eased the dull frustration about the little things and for a moment, Lexa remembered the exact reason Phil wasn’t in his spot today.

“Did you hear?” Costia grinned brightly. “A little boy, this guy got”.

Lexa felt her own mouth pull up as well. “He wanted a girl though”.

“Please, you should have heard him on the phone”, Costia turned around to pack up her bag, leaving Lexa for a moment to do the same. She patted away the layer of dirt and then pulled on the warm sweatshirt Anya had gotten her a couple of years back. Her jacket came up next and Lexa took a moment to soak in the warmth the clothes provided to her aching body.

“Did he say when he is going to be back?”

The smile slipped away from Costia’s face. The other woman leaned with a shoulder next to Lexa’s locker, waiting and thinking and scowling adorably to the thoughts in her head. Lexa waited as well, mechanically packing up her bag before they left.

“Next week”.

Hands paused. “Next week? What?”

Costia shrugged. “That is what he was told”.

Lexa shook her head, snapping out of the moment of shock. “Isn’t there a law about paternity leaves or something?”

“You know it doesn’t matter if there is. He cannot afford being away from work”.

“What does his wife do?” Lexa locked the locker and fell into step next to Costia. Her girlfriend walked with her shoulder curled in because of the day’s exhaustion but she looked cozy in the oversized clothes. The white sweatshirt stood in perfect contrast to the dark skin, its hood pooled at the back of the woman’s neck, hugging the short curls of wild brown hair. The baggy jeans hung low on narrow hips and Lexa felt her throat tightening with longing despite having seen the other woman this morning.

It took a moment for her to realize Costia was speaking, Lexa’s brain having snapped off in its quiet appreciation of her girlfriend’s body. In her hands, Costia had a red lighter and the usual pack of cigarettes, the grease stained fingers mindlessly playing with the edge of a paper box.

“…so I don’t really know the legal part”, Costia was saying and she seemed ready to bring a cigarette up to her mouth to light it up. Lexa’s heart beat out of control for a moment and with rushing but thankfully steady hands, paused Costia’s mechanical movements.

They both sighed into the soft kiss, hands reaching out for one another. The warmth of their lips managed to ease some tension in their bodies, the women swaying near the building’s side entrance.

“I needed that”, Costia mumbled and Lexa chuckled, feeling her girl’s hands tighten their hold on her sides, fingers spreading out on the thick fabric of the hoodie. “Long day?”

“You know it”, Lexa sighed, reaching away from Costia’s cheeks to find a hand and tangle their fingers together. “Come home with me. My mom cooked turkey breasts this morning for about half the state”.

Costia chuckled. “What are we celebrating?”

“Anya finally getting the bike of her dreams”.

The brunette smirked around her cigarette, managing to light it with her free hand, which held the lighter and the phone. They walked up to Lexa’s car but before Lexa could open the driver’s door, she heard Costia curse under her breath.

“What?”

“Look”.

Lexa followed the pointing finger and took a moment of searching the empty area of the parking lot to find what it was that had Costia mumbling out colorful words. Lexa took in the rest of the parked cars of their co-workers, the lonely lamp posts and the overflowing garbage bins across the lot’s guarded entrance. The security guy seemed to be asleep inside his small hut of a security post but Lexa could hear the faint music of old country songs the man usually listened to with a passion.

Finally, the green eyes zeroed in the spray painted catchword on the brick wall right across the entrance of the factory and surely, the words hadn’t been there this very morning. Lexa slowly felt numb as she read them, jawline tightening to the point of pain as frustration and dread clouded up her throat.

_Death to the Communist Antichrists! Sunday is the day of GOD!_

“What the fuck”, Lexa mumbled.

“This is about the general meetings”, Costia was rambling and she looked around the back of Lexa’s car for anything that might help them wipe out the words. “This is… is about the goddamned meetings we are having every Sunday”.

“I told you it would have people objecting”.

Costia threw her hands up in exasperation. “It is the only day most of the guys do not have work every damned hour! The only day we get people to come for an _hour_! We are not even planning them on Church hours!”

“Should I talk to the Elias?” Lexa asked, nodding toward the security guy. “He might have seen who did it, if they are a worker here or someone from town. Not that it’ll be any use”.

“Shit”, Costia gave up her search and Lexa softened at the tired look. “This’s honestly the last thing we need now. And for fuck’s sake, _we_ go to church with them as well”.

Lexa came to stand in front of her, long fingers reaching out to caress the tight curls of hair, the smooth skin of her girlfriend’s face. Costia actually eased at the touches, leaning into them carefully. She was seated on the truck’s edge and Lexa leaned in to place a gentle kiss on the pulp lips.

“Wait until they find out the general meetings are organized by lesbians. The death penalty is going to be forced on us at last”.

Costia tried but couldn’t hold back the laughter that bubbled up in her chest.

“That wasn’t even a joke”.

“You laughed”.

“I’m tired, Lexa!”

Brown eyes looked up at Lexa and the bright smile settled back on her lean face, shoulders relaxing. They had been fucking lucky in that department; working with people who honestly did not have any time to flinch or mutter slurs or even think when the two of them kept their relationship unhidden and unapologetic. These people honestly had so many things and problem to deal with that they did not even care to look at them as anything other than co-workers. They didn’t care they dated, they did not care to question Costia’s constant asks about group talks about politics.

To the workers’ eyes, Costia and Lexa had always been good and honest about who they were and what they believed in. Lexa with her sharp mind and hidden sense of humor and the intimidating stare of green eyes at the face of any unfairness. Costia with her uplifting mood and contagious laughter and passionate kindness about the right thing. Their shared constant worry of the way life was treating so many people.

They had been lucky these trades were stronger than the rooted homophobia so many people in their city carried in their minds.

“Come on”, Lexa pulled at Costia’s hand to get her away from the car’s track. “You can read me the news on the way home”.

“My, my, aren’t you generous today, Miss Woods?”

The drive to Lexa’s house was filled by Costia’s smooth voice reading about the news of the world on the screen of the old phone. This had been a heavy year of more and more anti-government uprisings all over Europe, a lot of messy and bloodied riots in Asia with hundreds of deaths every single day. America wasn’t out of it; the protests all over the country for the subtle talks of military attacks in the countries of Middle East and south Africa, rubbing wrong on the people’s minds. The anti-war protests were mostly held by students at the moment, paired with the debt of student loans the government was now asking the colleges and families to pay in parts.

“This is gorgeous”, Costia mumbled as she watched a video of a protest somewhere. The united voices of hundreds of people filled the car and Lexa frowned as her eyes took in the contrasting emptiness of the town’s streets. She knew one of those days the college in the state’s capitol held a demonstration and Lexa wished they could go, but work was a mess this month and they could not leave without being fired at the next moment.

The apartment building Lexa lived with her parents seemed lighter than usual, the scent of food drifting all the way down to the lobby, where the security guy dozed off with a book against his chest. Costia snickered at him and shook her head at the other brunette, passing by him unnoticed and quiet, to get up the stairs to the first floor and the single door by the line of stairs.

“Mom!” Lexa called out as soon as she unlocked the door. “We are home”.

“Kitchen!” Lexa’s father answered instead as Costia and Lexa toed off their shoes, mouths already watering at the scent of cooked meat. Both of Lexa’s parents sat by the table, equally cheerful smiles on their faces and Lexa was surprised to find the large figure of Gustus on a third chair.

“Gus!” she greeted him with a pat on the shoulder, while Costia leaned down to give her mother a side hug, aware of the wood dust still lingering on her clothes and skin. “What are you doing here?”

“Ah, finished work early and my dear brother called to invite me over for a beer”, he smiled up at Lexa with softness in his rough face. His beard needed a good trim and shave and he maybe needed a haircut as well, but convincing him would be another battle she didn’t have energy to give. He also seemed tired and heavy because of the day, deepening lines on the corners of his eyes and mouth. Lexa always had a very soft spot for him.

Lexa’s father nudged a bottle of beer toward Costia but the girl shook her head. “We need a shower before anything”, Lexa answered for her, taking a look at the counter. The food was in the oven, looking deliciously amazing, a bowl of salad was resting on the surface, covered with a wide plate. A few plates were in the sink.

“We’ve eaten already”, Lexa’s father said having seen the way the green eyes trailed over the place in search of something. They might look nothing alike but they’d still gotten Lexa when she was a toddler and the girl had taken the man’s observant eyes. “But we’re planning on keeping you company on the table. Anya also called and she is coming over with Tris”.

Costia brightened. “Yeah?”

“Yeah”, Lexa’s mother smiled back. “Off you go now. Shower off this smell of wood”.

“No funny business with my daughter in the shower, Costia!” Lexa’s father called out when they were in the hall, making Costia burst out in uncontrollable laughter while Lexa’s head lowered in utter and complete shame.

“My business with your daughter is completely serious, sir!” Costia called back, the groan, which Lexa had managed to hold back, was now escaping loud and free.

“Alright, enough”, Lexa groaned, pushing Costia in the bathroom, as she and the rest of Lexa’s family kept laughing unapologetically.

“Have I told you how much I love your dad?” Costa grinned.

“A couple of times”.

She softened when Lexa reached up and pressed her forehead on Costia’s shoulder, long arms coming up to wrap around Lexa’s smaller body, pulling her close. As they stood in the bathroom and the heaviness of the day slowly caught up to them, they slumped against one another, Costia tilting to the side to lean on the bathroom sink.

“He seemed alright”, Lexa mumbled against Costia’s shoulder and the girl nodded.

“Has he gone to a doctor lately?”

Lexa shook her head no. “I’m saving him some money. Maybe next month but they will tell him to get tests and the money for those… I don’t know”.

Costia caressed her back with a flat palm, rocking gently back and forth. “Anything I can do to help, you tell me. I know your mom hesitates to ask me for anything”.

“She thinks we work too much”.

“Nine hours with two breaks are manageable”.

“She still thinks it is too much”.

“It is what it is”, Costia sighed heavily. “ _My mom_ thinks she should get another job”.

“Jesus”, Lexa pulled back, green eyes snapping up into brown. “Why?”

“Told me last night”. She shrugged, backing off to slip out of the jacket and the white sweatshirt, flinching as detritus fell on the floor in a visible layer. The clothes ended up in a pile away from the rest of the unwashed clothes, the solid dirt clinching into them and needing to be shook off before the fabric came anywhere near the clothe washing machine.

“She does not want Annie getting a job in high school”, Costia sighed heavily. Annie, the girl’s younger sister and the one supposed to go to college with a scholarship. It was one of their mother’s biggest regret; Costia working in high school and narrowly missing the only chance she had for college.

“And I do not either”, Costia sighed as she helped Lexa slip out of her own clothes, in need to feel the tattooed skin for a moment. They shivered in the chill air, Lexa’s arm reaching over to turn on the hot water. “But mamma already works a ten hour shift, how the hell is she going to fit in another job?”

“No idea”, Lexa sighed, rubbing at her eyes with two fingers as she felt them burn with exhaustion. “You think of taking an extra shift in the factory, don’t you?”

“I do”.

“Don’t do it. Sidney almost doesn’t pay the worked hours; if you stay for longer she won’t give you shit for those”, Lexa mumbled as she stepped under the warm spray of water, offering a hand to Costia to help her inside the bathtub.

“What am I going to do?”

“I don’t know, love”.

“We should get to the protest in Concord next week. It’ll make me feel better”.

“Can we manage that?”

“We can get a sick leave”.

“Both of us? They won’t give them”.

“Yeah, well, we have the right, okay? Fuck this shit. We are a couple; you get sick, I get sick. This is how it goes! We can get a sick leave at the same time! It has logic!”

Lexa was laughing and after a moment, Costia was laughing with her under the warm water, both of them relishing in the feeling of being together like this. Nothing else seemed as important at this moment.

“Why am I the one getting you sick?”

“You are the stubborn one, Alexandria Woods, and I enjoy kissing you too much”.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Christmas talk in November? Yes. Fuck 2020.
> 
> Trigger Warnings; mass shooting scene, mentions of Lexa's death in the show

Banging on the door had both girls jolting from sleep, hands tightening around one another, eyes blinking open – alerted, confused, worried. Sunlight spilled softly from the cracks of the wood covered window, the faint sound of traffic reached them. The flame in the lantern on the floor was long put out. Everything was still; quiet.

All but the goddamned pounding on the _fucking door._

“What is it?” Clarke heard Lexa growl out, in the process of burying herself further in the blankets and the warmth of Lexa’s naked body. The other woman was starting to shudder though and Clarke was forced awake by the knowledge Lexa would have to find a shirt to put on sooner rather than later.

“ _Lexa, wake the fuck up!_ ”

“I will fight her”, Clarke mumbled on Lexa’s bare shoulder, grimacing at the muffled sound of Anya’s voice behind the relentless knocks. “I’m fighting her, Lexa”.

“What do you want, Anya?”

“ _Wake up! Both of you! You owe me breakfast!_ ”

“Jesus Christ, stop with the pounding! We are up!”

“I’m killing her, Lexa”.

“I know, my love”.

“Raven too”.

“Why Raven?”

“Demons are stronger together when they shouldn’t exist at all”.

Lexa chuckled and to Clarke’s utter, _miserable,_ fucking _dislike,_ she slipped from Clarke’s arms and out of the bed, shuddering in the freezing air hovering around the high ceilinged space. “Those are some unholy words for this time of the year, my love”.

“What?”

“Christmas, Clarke. You cannot talk about exorcisms in Christmas”.

Clarke was awake now. “Wait, wait, Lexa”, she was mumbling, reaching up to take a hold of Lexa’s wrist to keep her from moving away. Her blue eyes seemed bright in the glowing sunrays that managed to slip past the cracks of the wide wood covered window and Lexa halted her movements, awed by the sight for a long gay moment. “It’s Christmas?”

“Christmas Eve Eve”.

“Are you serious?”

“Yes?”

“I… I missed Thanksgiving and… Halloween?”

Lexa frowned softly. She shuddered heavily again, visible goosebumps breaking out across the white skin. A thrown sweatshirt was the first thing her hands grabbed, an old one that was resting at the foot of the bed. It smelled of dust and humidity and it was stiff and cold on her skin. “Halloween happened when Brooklyn was a mess and many people kind of… skipped I guess. At least in DC”.

“And Thanksgiving?”

“It was while you were taken, Clarke”.

“How did I even forget this?”

Lexa smiled softly at her, reaching up to caress her cheek. “It’s been a rough time”.

When they stepped out of the room, Anya was glaring and Clarke glared right back. It would take a few years, to get over the three short days Clarke had spent with Anya and Raven in her best friend’s apartment next to her shop… And really, Clarke was so happy Raven had found someone after Luna and in the middle of this difficult time of the whole humanity’s life, _but_ , she hadn’t wanted to hear it through the thin walls of the apartment. So, yeah, Anya and Raven kind of topped over Octavia and Lincoln on the _annoying couple mental list_ Clarke unfortunately had in her sorry head.

At the sight of Lexa burying herself in Anya’s arms, Clarke wanted to scowl to herself for even _feeling_ a pang of warmth for the damned woman, who scowled too much at everything and anything that had to do with the younger blonde.

Lexa’s smile was brighter than the sun today and any shield Clarke held against Anya melted away in the moment of a fingers’ snap. Their eyes met over the commander’s shoulder and they nodded their unspoken truce for the morning.

It had snowed during the night; the white puffy thing kind of softening the drilling chill of the day before; the roads, the sidewalks, the cars and the lean trees covered in a layer of beautiful white. The softest of air was blowing by, taking the last falling snowflakes on a gentle ride around the buildings, before letting them find a surface to settle on.

Clarke dreaded when it would melt away in the dirt and make a mess of mud everywhere.

There were a couple of workers standing to the side with salt and shovels and loud laughter, the small cart behind them holding their weapons and cups of something warm. More people were walking around; patrol, social workers, people getting to their works, families getting to breakfast with the little kids delighted at the sight of the fresh snow. Heavy combat boots crashed through the white blanket, marking a map of paths to every direction for the workers to clear up.

Any other time, snowplows would have driven through the city during the night and the roads would have been almost cleared by the time the first people woke up to drive to their works across town. But now, the fuel was not much and the cars were not been used anymore for that; the people worked near their homes now, or in a walking distance from them, the kids didn’t have a school to go to – opting to stick with their parents most of the times rather than join the small community centers the old teachers had started to set up in the neighborhoods.

A process full of problems but slowly getting by, as the people eased at having their kids staying for a few hours with strangers. Clarke was now seeing more and more children moving around the city in big groups, with a few teachers leading them to various activities. People were slowly starting to trust one another again. Learning groups were open for anyone who wanted to join and even though children didn’t attend them in big numbers, many teenagers went back to them after a couple of months.

Clarke had once expected that teens and children and young adults would fall into a path of crime, now that the main battle was pushed out of the city and the people in it had started to settle into something like a routine. The food was bad, the medicine rationed, the clothes taken and given without an order. Empty apartments waiting to be rented were taken by the Coalition and opened up to be filled with people. Hotels and hostels and malls had been cleared out completely for even more people to take a shelter inside and, in clear and truthful honestly, Clarke had expected crime to rise in this unordered social system the Coalition worked with.

But no. The crime didn’t come from those expected. The black markets that popped up around the state – hidden and difficult to find and been tore down almost a split moment after being know – were been pulled up by groups of people stuck to a way of thinking of just making _more_ for themselves. More money, more items to hold in their property for – what? After living with no money and able to just take whatever she might need from the various tends and stands been pulled up downtown, Clarke could not understand why someone would want more than those they needed.

The curious and naturally rebellious way of thinking teenagers had, it somehow was managed perfectly by the Coalition. Clarke had seen many kids run around with fliers and cans of paint and even boxes of ammunition, making deliveries everywhere they were told to. They worked in pairs or groups, rode bikes and rollers sprinted through town freely but armed. Until now, they hadn’t posed a remarkable problem to patrol or the Coalition itself and so it kept going; downtown looked like an old Friday night, when kids were going out in numbers to have fun at the end of the week.

At the moment, laughing teenagers ran around the sidewalks, throwing snow at one another with blissful youth. Many of them carried backpacks larger than their bodies and were currently settling up old cheerful decorations. Christmas trees were pulled up in various spots in the city and in the most odd of places, colorful Christmas balls and plastic Santa Clauses were been dragged around the city to be placed in corners and on top of burned cars and next to overflown garbage bins.

There was a cute and small green Christmas tree on the food stand serving breakfast and Clarke paused at the simple sight of it, at old memories of spending the holidays with her friends in college or with her mom back in DC, memories of looking for gifts, looking for takeout for the night, looking for cheap Christmas lights and a new plastic tree to replace the broken or missing old one. Happy, simpler times.

“I’m glad it is not gone”, Clarke said to Lexa, leaning back on her chest on the line for breakfast. Something warm and baked was smelled in the air and the people behind the food stand offered steaming paper cups. Someone had apparently broken into a café somewhere and had taken every unknown cup there was in there. It was a small thing but Clarke filled with warmth at the feeling of wrapping her palm around paper rather than glass.

Lexa hooked her arms around her middle and Clarke eased at the touch, melting into the commander. She flinched as the gun on her side dug in a bit but Clarke ignored it in favor of the way Lexa pulled the coat tighter around her.

“Christmas?”

“Holidays in general”.

Lexa shrugged. “I couldn’t ban them”.

Clarke’s eyes widened and she pulled away, a scandalized look over her face – half covered under the scarf. “You wanted to ban _Christmas?!_ ”

Lexa’s eyes widened as well and she helplessly shrugged while Anya shot them a side look, unimpressed. “There is a political conversation about religion here, but I’m not sure you are in the mood for us to have it”.

“Of course I don’t, we just woke up, but what the fuck, Lexa?”

The Commander of the Revolution shrugged and sent a begging look at Anya. Her old cousin was currently ignoring them both, focused on inching closer and closer to the warm baked goods resting on the tables. No help there.

“You’re the monster hiding under children’s beds”, Clarke shook her head, biting her lip to keep from smirking. “I am reconsidering our whole relationship”.

Lexa rolled her eyes but she was smiling. “Let me be, Clarke”.

“You don’t like holidays. I’m dating a shell of a person with no emotions”.

Lexa snorted but smiled under the red scarf, eyes glimmering in the sunlight. “You need your morning tea”.

“You are changing the subject”.

“I am not”.

“Y…”

The shocking snap of uneven gunshots sounded in the distance.

The sound cut off whatever words had started to slip from the blonde’s mouth.

Clarke’s head snapped around as her body locked up at the familiar sound, each thud travelling like a pang to the middle of her chest. Lexa had somehow stepped in front of Clarke, green eyes hardened and cold and dangerous, her mouth moving and her voice shouting cutting directions.

Clarke could not hear a thing over the fucking pounding sound of blood in her ears.

The previous stillness of the air was filled with movement in an instant.

The people standing in the line splitting into three groups – one of families and kids and guarding rebels, one of people taking out their weapons and darting forward in a united defensive front, looking at the direction of the gunshots, the last group being quick to stack the huge filled trays and baskets of food in the parked van behind the food stand.

“We are going back to the Court House”, Lexa snapped at someone, her usually low voice now turned deep and direct and urgent. The commander stood in the middle of guarding warriors as if she was ready to spit fire and somehow a polished assault rifle had found a place in Lexa’s slender fingers.

It was a look so alien and new that Clarke jerked in surprise and straight into motion. The black gun felt heavy and cold in Clarke’s hand, her palm gluing effortlessly on its metal. Another gunshot sounded in the distance and the blonde’s free hand snapped to grasp at Lexa’s upper arm, pushing the commander further behind her body.

Anya stood a step in front of them – in position, rifle on her shoulder – finger so very near the trigger. The woman was pushing them back with her movements; with the slow half steps she took, making Clarke repeat them as well, walking backwards.

From somewhere, Gustus had also appeared next to them, along with two younger men Clarke had never seen before in her life, the three of them standing around her and Lexa like a protecting wall.

Lexa tagged at the back of Clarke’s coat, the assault rifle looking comfortable in her own shoulder and – goddamn – the commander had some military training put into her muscles. Lexa looked like an honest-to-God soldier and Clarke shuddered at the thought, not wanting to think of it ever again.

“Go”, Anya snapped at both of them, brown eyes scanning the buildings around, her gaze leaving Gustus’ own to check the front. There were people bursting outside of the buildings around, around the corners, taking one look at the protective groups formed around the families and food before taking off toward the distant sounds of shouting among the gunshots.

“There might be wounded”, Clarke protested but she was also moving back, careful to keep Lexa behind her.

There was something boiling in her gut – something begging her body to run forward rather than backward, rush to the site and make sure the rebels and the people were protected, were taken care of and were not bleeding alone on the freezing snow.

“When the fight stops”, Lexa tugged again and Clarke followed, watching Anya move with them as well, keeping them both behind her body. The older woman’s muscles were twisting under the dark green thick coat, her hold on the rifle never flattering.

They moved away from the block, going away when people were rushing forwards and Clarke was surprised to see that they were simple civilians between them, all of them carrying various weapons and worry in their gazes. Three motorcycles passed by them, tires sliding on the ice and mud dangerously, the speed sure and fast and unflattering.

Just as they reached the Court House, Octavia was speeding out of the front doors, a bulletproof vest on, an automatic rifle in her hold, three grenades and a long knife in the thick belt around her waist. At the sight of them, she paused and her eyes filled with relief. There were geared up rebels coming out of the doors behind Octavia, the weapons glistering in the sunlight and their back clothes contrasting the white snow around her.

“No!” Lexa’s voice bombed the place and most of the warriors paused at the straight order, the rest of them being forced to halt their movements forward by those who had already frozen at the command.

“We hold the base. Get into position in the front. Where are the snipers–“

The Commander’s words were cut off by the earthshattering loud sound of a wave of uncountable gunshots. Bullets snapped through the air around them, finding plastic trash cans, parked cars, columns and flesh. One after the other, rebels crumbled on the puffy snow with sharp cries of agony, blood splattering on the snow like a chilling scene of an old horror movie.

A rough hand grasped at Clarke’s arm, pushing her on the frozen pavement and the blonde grunted, glaring up at Anya. The woman was too busy shooting at the group of Reapers, who had appeared from the side of the road, her face screwed up with determination and outrage, the rifle kicking back against her shoulder viciously.

“Lexa?!” Anya shouted over the sound, her eyes never leaving her targets ducking in corners and behind stands across the wide road. Some of the Reapers fell in the trial to jump behind cover, but most of them got over the shock of finding resistance and shot right back.

“I’m here”, Lexa grunted, her jaw clenched, her eyes closed as the sound of gunshots clattering around them. She opened them when rushing hands pressed on her torso, Clarke’s blue eyes wide with rage and fear, looking for a wound. “I’m okay”.

“Fuck”, the blonde spat, turning her eyes away and towards the Court House. An alarming amount of red colored the white layer of snow there, bodies scattered on it like dead weight.

Her gaze found Octavia among the bodies and, for a shuttering moment, her heart dropped out of her chest in petrifying terror.

But her childhood friend’s limbs were twisting and her chest was rapidly heaving, her iron voice screamed clear words under the mess of thudding sounds. Clarke let out a harsh exhale against the electrified air, took a long moment to press her forehead on Lexa’s shoulder in numbing relief – the gunshots turning into a dull sounds in her ringing ears, the world slipping away in a very inconvenient moment.

She needed to snap out of it.

_NOw._

The space between the sidewalks was turned into an open fucking battle field, where bullets cracked back and forth toward the sheltered people. Bullets found the metal of the car they were hidden underneath with a cluttering sound that sent flashes of shock down the blonde’s rigid spine.

However, Lexa seemed to have other plans in her mind. With a clenched jaw and her eyes cold and distant and outranged, the Commander shifted on the icy pavement, boots digging into snow and slipping on ice, a second before her long fingers twisted on the assault rifle, loading it up – clicking off the safety.

It took a rough hold on Lexa’s shoulder for Clarke to keep her down on the sidewalk and the Commander’s eyes dangerously snapped up on Clarke, at the steeling hands keeping her down.

Lexa found equally darkening blue eyes glaring right back.

“Stay put”, Clarke snarled at Lexa and tightened her own hold on the gun.

“Clarke–“

“Stay”, Clarke ordered again and her eyes snapped to the side, to the far corner of the Court House’s gate, where a Reaper appeared with a gun in a hand and a shiny grenade in the other.

Clarke pressed the trigger before Gustus, the gunshot making her hand jolt back just a bit. Lexa flinched away, making some room for Clarke to slip on the other side and keep the Commander between her body and Anya’s. Gustus eyed Clarke and nodded before he turned his assault rifle to the side, taking down three more geared up men with bags on their heads as soon as they appeared around the corner.

“ _Take cover!_ ” someone shouted from the other side of the street and Clarke had a glimpse of something being thrown across the air – a moment before an explosion sounded and shook the ground with clear vibrations. The metallic scents of blood and ammunition were covered by the smell of broken concrete and smoke.

It gave the rebels some time to burst from the cover they were forced to take behind the Court House’s concrete walls and iron gate. They did not manage to get very far; the group of Reapers across the street was there to shoot them down and Clarke felt a knot grasp at her dry throat at the sight of men and women being ripped apart by speeding bullets before dropping on the ground with muffled thuds, the force of their drop shooting the puffy snow around, a great amount of it starting to melt under the hot blood that pooled on it.

Her eyes found Octavia on the ground again; the girl had managed to scoot back on the ground, broken tiles sprayed with blood and covered with bodies of their allies. She had managed to get a cover behind a small pile of them and Clarke clenched her jaw hard enough to hurt as her blue eyes watched Lincoln trying and failing to get to her friend, his face anguished.

It made her heart freeze over and thud heavily against its ribcage.

Her mind flashed with twenty images of broken people held in a basement.

With Emerson's haunting face, which still flickered around in her mind like a ghost, with his forehead cracked open from Clarke's bullet, with his lips pulled back in their cold snarling smirk.

Memories of five masked men and women waiting for her in the old tiny apartment with the guns ready, dark eyes zeroing in on hers with a glimmer of freezing joy to finally be able to cause pain, with their fists having already wrecked the items in the tiny apartment.

She remembered Lexa on a hospital stretcher - gut split open by a bullet from an ambush like this one, red blood spilling on Clarke's medical gloves and staining the white robe.

Clarke remembered the bullet speeding through a room, and she remembered green eyes widening in utter shock and disbelief as it found flesh and tight muscles, longing into the commander's body. She remembered how the woman stumbled a step back by the force, boots uneven on the tiled floor of the doorway. Clarke's mind remembered how her green eyes glanced down at the hole in Lexa's stomach, the dark blood starting to leak out.

Clarke felt her breath catch somewhere in her dry throat. Blue eyes snapped up to greyish green and freezing fear clouded her heart and mind as she remembered of the time she'd tried to save her and failed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It cuts off weirdly, I know, but the original chapter was so loooong and i did it in two parts!


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PART TWO FOLKS
> 
> GUESS WHO IS DRUNK AND WRITTING AGAIN! I AM! 
> 
> trigger warning; mass shooting scene, mentioning of Lexa's death on the show, execution, blood and violence and shit

The gunshots shook the ground with each cracking sound, bleeding into their ears as they snapped through still winter air. Clarke’s heavy breaths were fogging in front of her face, the side of her body pressed up against Lexa’s, combat boots kicking at the dirty melting snow underneath them. Wild blue eyes flickered up the very entrance of the Court House’s gates, the marble columns on each side being ripped by bullet holes and deep cracks.

Her eyes found Octavia on the ground.

She’d managed to scoot back on the ground, on broken tiles that were sprayed with blood, covered with bodies of comrades and friends. Clarke saw Octavia reach to the side with a trembling hand, clawing at a dropped arm. The way the dead body rolled over to the side to cover Octavia’s body from the snapping bullets had a knot of bile burning right through Clarke’s stomach.

Clarke clenched her jaw enough to hurt, as she watched Lincoln trying and failing to get to her friend, his face anguished.

It made her heart freeze over and thud heavily against its ribcage. Her mind flashed with twenty images of broken people held in a basement.

Memories of five masked men and women waiting for her in the old tiny apartment with the guns ready, with their fists having already wrecked the items in Clarke’s tiny apartment. Clarke remembered Lexa on a hospital stretcher, gut split open by a hole and a bullet she had gotten in an ambush like this one.

_To hell with this…_

The memories were enough to burst energy down her body, the freezing cold of ice and shock cracking away from her nerves. Clarke span forwards and took a hold of a grenade hanging from a guard’s belt and the old man startled enough to pause and get a bullet on the shoulder, falling on the ground with a pained cry. Clarke snarled at the second guard to drag him behind a car before he was shot dead as well.

“Clarke, what are you _doing_?!” Lexa’s eyes were wide and terrified.

Clarke didn’t answer, using Anya’s cover to stand on aching legs, throw the grenade as far as she could. Muscle memory kicked in to help her aim and throw and help her move back again, eyes not waiting to see if the grenade was shot straight and in the middle of the attacking group of Reapers. It would land somewhere; it would go off and hopefully shock the bastards enough for the rebels to finish this at last.

Lexa was thankfully quick to pull Clarke down behind the car again, a bullet flashing near her head and making her breath catch somewhere in her throat.

Lexa snapped. “Are you insane?”

“ _Down!_ ” someone screamed and the blast had the ground violently shaking. Lexa was able to take a hold of Anya’s backpack and drag her on the ice covered ground a second before it happened.

The woman was rapidly panting as the ground shook for a moment, smoke and dirty cracked concrete filling the air with a bitter scent. Anya reached over to pat Clarke’s leg with a hand, brown eyes flashing with something like utter relief.

“Good shot”.

“Shit, thanks”.

There was a second of ringing silence before the remaining rebels tore forward with a united battle cry and the next wave of gunshots was longer than the previous ones.

More of them arrived from their far right, another group of armed people appearing for support. Clarke grunted and fought against the urge to cover her ears against the overwhelming sound of firing machine guns. For a moment, Clarke’s brain snapped a couple of years back, at the beginning of the uprising – the beginning of the riots.

The machine guns had been firing like this for whole nights until the early mornings. Terror and blood and choking anger had been all Clarke felt and saw back then; the skin of her palms having a permanent pink color and iron scent; the heart slamming against her ribcage every couple of hours, to the point of physical pain. And behind all of these, the sound of machine guns echoed in the distance – like a threat, like a warning.

Wild blue eyes looking up at Lincoln rushing forwards to Octavia and helping her sit up on the snow. The blonde sighed heavily and collapsed against Lexa at the sight of Octavia’s sharp aware eyes.

She was fine, Octavia was fine, everything _fine_.

Lexa shuddered against her as another wave of shots and shouts echoed in the road and Clarke reached out in instinct, wrapping her hand around Lexa’s small wrist, her fingers rubbing soothing patterns on the cold skin there. The woman’s pulse beat up against the skin in a dull but wild pace. Their eyes met, green and blue, wild and filled with burning adrenaline.

When the sounds finally stopped for a safe amount of time, they took in a very deep breath of freezing air, the coldness of it cutting through lungs, through throats. Anya heavily sighed, let her head drop back on the car with a dull thud. Gustus slowly sat on the snow, letting his rifle on the ground next to him, hands pressing down his face to burry in his beard for a moment, narrow brown eyes looking up at the clear blue sky.

Clarke breathed out, curling against Lexa’s side, feeling her girl’s arms quickly come up around her to pull her closer. They stayed still for a moment with the rest of the universe, coldness sleeping in their bodies through their legs and thick clothes.

“What the f _uck_ ”, Anya mumbled before pulling her body away from the car to peek over the hood. She heavily sighed, dropped back on the ground with a sharp breath, coughing as the freezing winter air cut through her airway and lungs. Anya grunted and glanced at the side, said more loudly; “What the fuck? Good shot, Griffin”.

“Softball”, Clarke mumbled, closing her eyes against Lexa’s neck, feeling her girl pant fast against her. Lexa was heavily gulping every couple of seconds and Clarke pressed as close as possible. “I did softball in high school”.

“I pictured you as the art kid”.

“I was”.

“You balanced art and softball?”

“For a few years; fine art class won in the end”.

“We can talk about childhood activities another time”, Lexa breathed out. She was shaky and Clarke let herself be fully held, her body completely slacking on the side.

Rising on aching legs, Anya mumbled, “Come on”, making them look up.

Rebels were walking around them and soon enough a wail of grief echoed in the air surrounding them. Clarke looked up at a man dropping on his knees near one of the bodies in the gate, gloved hands soaking in blood and melting snow. Her own hands tightened around Lexa’s coat and Clarke looked up, froze there next to her, holding onto her, the horror of what had happened snapping through her body like a whip.

“Clarke, we need to get up”.

She didn’t move.

Her mind shut down for a moment, eyes blurring as Clarke pictured her bare palms and fingers stained with Lexa’s blood from a gunshot wound. The image was clearer than the sky above their heads – almost like a memory but not quite right, because Clarke had worn gloves in the surgery, had not come into contact with Lexa’s spilling dark blood. Panic started to cloud her mind lightly, chest heaving with heavy breaths.

“My love…” Lexa took a hold of Clarke’s face, boots kicking at the snow, trying to sit up and look closer into the clouded panicked blue eyes. “Clarke?”

Clarke looked down at Lexa’s stomach, half expecting to find black blood soaking the thick fabric of her winter coat. “You are okay. Are you okay?”

“Yes, hey, I’m okay”, Lexa frowned when the panic didn’t lessen. A hand pressed on her gut, where the scar of the so old bullet wound rested, familiar to both of them by now.

“Are you sure?”

“I am okay, Clarke, but we need to get up now”.

Clarke nodded against her, frozen, numb. From her part, Lexa tightened her hold on the blonde woman for a moment and didn’t dare to move despite her words. Clarke could feel her heartbeat thud through her whole body, sending electric currents and shudders down her tight muscles – from the freezing cold or the shock, the woman did not know.

“Lexa –“ Anya lightly hesitated at the sight of Clarke clutching at the front of her little cousin’s coat like her life depended on it and green eyes looked up to drown into her brown ones.

“Form a group”, the Commander whispered, slowly running her hands up and down Clarke’s tensed back over her thick coat. “Search the whole area, find anyone hiding in the buildings around and search the first ambush as well. Get the ones here away from the bodies; they will have time to grief later. They need to be moving”.

“I don’t think…”

“Do as I say, Anya, keep the people moving before they get frostbites. I will take care of the dead with a few others. Get everyone moving. They need to be alerted. They’ll grief in the funeral”.

“Those were their friends and…”

“I know how grief works and I can’t have it in this moment. We need information of this attack, we need to find any Reaper lurking around. Get these warriors moving”.

“Lexa…”

“Now, General”.

“As you wish”.

Trying to refocus her gaze on whatever was happening, Clarke forced her body away from her girl’s side. It took a few heavy blinks and deep cracked breaths for her mind to fully return in the present and the next moment she was met with darkened green eyes.

They did not exactly softened when Clarke looked into them, but a layer of worry fell over them, making something in her body give away in relief. Lexa pulled her legs up and scooted into a crutching position, half standing and half keeling, a gloveless hand coming up to softly cup Clarke’s cheek.

Lexa’s skin was alarmingly cold. “Are you okay?” she asked and Clarke nodded slowly as she drowned in the green eyes in front of her. “Are you sure?”

“I panicked”, Clarke mumbled, remembering pushing Lexa down, remembering how cold and harsh her voice sounded in her own ears. She remembered Lexa’s red blood on the skin of her palms and Clarke’s had never had Lexa’s blood on her skin like this. Her mind was confusing itself with made up thoughts and memories and Clarke took in an inhale of cold cutting air to distract her thoughts.

Lexa’s jaw was clenched. “We are okay”, she said quietly and her cold thumb slowly caressed Clarke’s cheek. “I need to stand up now, yes?”

Clarke nodded, lowering her head as everything in her body screamed to her to not let Lexa go. “I will check the wounded”, Clarke managed to mumbled and then she was slammed by a body crushing against her, Octavia’s familiar voice filling her ears and senses.

“Jesus, what the _fuck_ were you thinking, Clarke”, Octavia panted on top of her head.

Clarke pressed against her friend as she felt Lexa stand on shaky feet and slowly walk away. Her best friend pulled back with wide eyes and took Clarke’s face in both of her hands as the doctor’s own hands started to pat around her torso in instinct. The bulletproof vest hung open around her body and Octavia hissed between her words when Clarke’s hands pressed down on her left ribcage;

“Nice throw but _ah…_ holy… f… fuck, this hurts, Cl – _ah_ … Griffin, shit, cut it off”.

“You have cracked ribs”, Clarke gulped and continued to examining her friend.

“Yes, bullets found me a couple of times. But – _shit –_ Clarke, you stood up like it was fucking _nothing_. I saw that fucking bullet miss your head for an inch”.

Clarke breathed out heavily and Octavia gritting her teeth as her hand moved to the other side, finding an alarming bent there. “O, lay the fuck down, right now, why the hell are you on your feet”.

Clarke’s order didn’t take no for an answer.

Lincoln appeared out of empty air by their side, flinching every time Octavia grunted, as if he was the one feeling the pain.

“She needs to get to the hospital. Now”.

“A car?”

“Preferably”.

He nodded and caressed his girlfriend’s hair with a trembling hand. “I will find one”.

“Be quick”, Clarke mumbled and looked around, her hands on Octavia’s shoulders.

As told, Anya had gathered up the rebels and had forced them away from the bodies on the snow, taking them across the street. There were numbers walking around the dead Reapers there, giving final shots on the heads to make sure everyone was down and there were members ducking inside the near buildings, climbing to the roofs and fire escapes to get a better look around. There was a small crowd of both rebels and simple civilians, Anya standing in the middle of it and giving rapid orders to everyone who stepped closer.

Lexa stood in the middle of the gate of the Court House, staring at the motionless dark bodies dropped on the white snow. She was a lone dark figure in the middle of everything, barely looking human in the image of death and destruction. The assault rifle was forgotten in one hand, a black radio in the other.

A surreal view, a tragic view.

Clarke remembered black blood on her palms and a bed covered in animal furs, dark green eyes slowly losing focus; green eyes filling with tender light; eyes being sucked in cold darkness; until there was nothing left behind.

Clarke turned to the side, retching acidic bile. Spitting saliva and hints of yesterday’s dinner, reminded the blonde woman how they needed to focus on the presence. The people had not eaten yet, grief and cold was making their bodies even weaker and it wouldn’t be long until someone passed out on the snow.

She focused on that.

Not the sick images in her head.

Anything but those.

The sound of a vehicle coming to park near them was all it took for Clarke to move. It was impossible for the blue eyes to not strand toward Lexa again, only to find her on the move as well, the commander’s boots carrying her closer to the bodies, her head never turning to look back. Clarke’s chest tightened with the need to comfort her, to hold her.

But she could only gulp for now, attention turning to Miller kneeling near, to Atom and Lincoln as they rushed forward with a stretcher to put Octavia on.

“Clarke!” Anya called out, making her eyes turn to look over a shoulders. Anya was coming closer, brown eyes snapping around; to Octavia been pushed into a car, to Lexa crouching in front of a fallen woman, to sharpened blue eyes. “We could use your help down the block. There are injured”.

“Lead the way”, Clarke mumbled under her breath and followed Anya’s quick steps away from the Court House without another thought.

Blue eyes caught sight of a hand extending towards her – a hand belonging to a guy around her age, who had a hood dropped on the icy pavement near his head and a bullet hole in his shoulder. His cheek was blown off; the last headshot rushed, gone wrong. A Reaper, dying on the snow, dying alone and for a twisted purpose she did not want to understand.

His eyes were filled with agony and fear and blood was coating the snow under him. He would be dead in a few very painful moments – because of the blood loss rather than hypothermia; that would surely take more time. Brown eyes, split lips, shaved brunette hair; all she saw in him was Emerson; Emerson and his stupid smirk and his low voice and his steeled words; all she saw was Octavia gasping for air and Lexa’s blood soaked fingers holding onto the bullet hole in her own stomach.

Clarke paused in front of him. He straggled to look up but he managed, and she had a gun out, pointing it to his head. Clarke waited; for the realization to kick in, for the fear to deepen in the dull gaze. It took longer than she thought but it did not matter. Emerson had taken some time to realize too.

It wasn’t mercy for his wounds, what drove Clarke to pull the trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen, guys, to those of you still reading this mess, leave a comment, talk to me, I am in quarantine and bored and I want to talk to you about this story that i hold so dear to my heart even if at times it is a bitch to write. i'm currently stuck way down the chapters and ugh, ughhh.
> 
> if you see any mistakes tell me i will fix them later! English is not my first language
> 
> how is everyone? any protests, riots happening? here there is nothing and i am so so miserable about it *sigh*


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings; mentions of Lexa's death in the show

The wind had picked up outside the barricaded window, sending a whooshing sound through the distant people chatter. The Court House base was alive with movements of rebels arriving and parting, readjusting to having less and new people around. The fresh snow the Christmas weather brought in the city covered the traces of dry blood and dynamite and thrown concrete dust, covered the twenty graves in the building’s front garden.

When Lexa stepped back into the room, dressed in the darkness of the night and the light glow of a lantern in a bare hand, Clarke was sat in the edge of the bed, a yellow blanket wrapped around hutched shoulders.

Eyes met across the room as Lexa turned off the gentle flame in the lantern, combat boots fumbling against one another to be kicked off near the doorway.

“You okay?”

A gentle huff.

Lexa shrugged off the long coat and rolled off the red scarf, both pieces thrown on a chair on the side of the room’s bookcase. As soon as the mattress dipped behind the blonde, blue eyes gently closed, relishing into the warmth Lexa brought. Pulp dry lips pressed against the blanket on Clarke’s shoulder, hands pressing on her upper arms, squeezing once and then twice, before softly rubbing up and down.

Nose pressed in blonde hair took in a deep inhale. “You smell good”.

Clarke hummed quietly, eyes still closed as she leaned back on Lexa. “A guy brought in a nice soap in the bathrooms”.

“Still some?”

“Yeah”.

Another kiss was offered, carefully placed on the top of Clarke’s head. Shifting, Lexa pressed against her back fully, legs coming up around her sides, long arms wrapping around her torso.

“How is Octavia?”

Clarke let out a long sigh, tension both melting away and building up in her muscles. Octavia was currently staying in a double room in the hospital, given the last of the painkiller’s supply the hospital had. Kane was finally forced to go to Coalition’s chiefs at last, to ask for an early run and restock.

“Dozing off for now”, she mumbled, voice quiet and cracking. “She wanted to get up on her feet already. Thank God, Raven was the one to curse her out for getting shot this time”.

“Bellamy?”

“Terrified and livid. Livid with both the Reapers and Octavia”.

“Makes sense…”

Clarke nodded and took in a deep breath, comforted by the way her tired mind was turned off rather blissfully. No images of the day coming up for the time being – it’d all come back during the night.

Like it always did.

“I was scared today”, Clarke mumbled just as quietly, relaxing as her girlfriend’s arms tightened. She shook her head. “After everything that has happened, my mind… my mind is starting to come up with…”

Patiently, Lexa waited for her voice to find some strength again. It took it some deep breaths and a few shudders for her to continue.

“I think my mind confuses reality and imagination”.

“What?” Lexa frowned against Clarke’s shoulder.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m having these thoughts of you dying and…”

“I… I’m not going to…”

“What? Die?”

“We all die”.

Clarke laughed bitterly. “Fuck you”.

“Sorry”. Lexa slowly pulled back, hands urging Clarke to turn around and look at the green eyes. The white skin of her hands was shockingly cold against Clarke’s cheeks and jawline. “Tell me about what you’re thinking”.

“Always a gunshot. Here”, Clarke mumbled and placed a hand on the brunette’s gut. “And I do not see details of what I do or what I’m trying to do, I just… I just see your eyes looking at me and…”

Her breath caught somewhere in her flaming throat, dragging out a cough instead of words.

Lexa’s hand wrapped around Clarke’s own, pressing it closer against the flat stomach and over the scar that rested there. The times… the times Clarke had spent pressing open mouth kisses on the skin there flashed by her mind and bright blue eyes slowly lifted to look at greyish green.

“I don’t know what is happening in your thoughts”, Lexa’s voice was gentle. “But I do know that four months ago you saved my life. _You_ did, Clarke. I’m only here because of you”.

Blue eyes flickered, tangled fingers tightened and Clarke tilted forward, a free hand coming up to take a hold of Lexa’s neck. “I cannot do this without you, Lexa”, Clarke mumbled as foreheads met in the middle of the small space between their bodies.

“Don’t think like that”.

She nodded because she knew. Clack could wake up tomorrow morning to find the other side of the bed empty like usually – cold like usually, get through her day like usually and suddenly get word from someone of an ambush in a safe house – of an honest to god slaughter of Coalition’s members – only to find out Lexa was one of the bodies.

Or, Clarke could be walking home and the Reapers wouldn’t stall this time – it’d only take a masked man or woman stepping into the path Clarke always took home – the blue eyes would only have time to widen for a split second before the gun would fire and a bullet would split her head in half right there in the middle of the street.

This could happen any day.

It was what happened everyday – to anyone and anywhere in this country.

But Lexa… Lexa was the main target even if they couldn’t find her.

Until now, at least.

Clarke pulled back to meet the commander’s eyes, body and soul softening as they flickered open. “We should move”, Clarke cleared her throat. “They might be here for you”.

“Me?”

“They sent a hundred people against the forty who live here. They got half of us and if it wasn’t for the people who came from the other side of the district… They were aiming for something, Lexa”.

The commander’s face had fallen and tightened at the same time in the expression it usually rested over her face when things tended to take an unlikable turn. Clarke let go as soon as Lexa shifted away from her hold, stepping off of the soft mattress and quietly pacing to the desk under the window.

Clarke breathed out, lowering her head in her hands and waiting, as Lexa flickered through papers and books and notepads. Her eye caught a glimpse of a pile of old banners stacked against the corner of the room, the black and red fabric capturing some of the lanterns’ light. The banners had been left there ever since Clarke had moved into the office room last week and she had forgotten to ask – as Lexa didn’t seem to give a thought that they were even here in the first place.

As Clarke walked up to them, Lexa exhaled a deep breath and shuddered against the chill of the room’s winter air. Fingers carefully unrolled one of them, a familiar circle coming into view. Without meaning to, Clarke smiled, warmth filling her chest at the reminder of the glorious fights against fascism of hundreds of people over the whole country. It must have been… what? Five? Four years ago?

Lexa watched softly from her standing place by the desk.

“Yeah, you are right. We should move”.

Clarke looked up. “Another base? A safe house?”

“I will talk to… someone”.

The blonde doctor nodded. She rolled the flag back up and reached for another one; an old American Flag, ripped at an edge and painted over with a blue peace symbol.

Her voice came out as a whisper. “When are the funerals?”

“Tomorrow afternoon”.

“Will you go?” Clarke cleared her throat, head tilting up to look at Lexa. The green eyes had lowered with something like covered grief and shame and Clarke let go of the flag she was holding, standing in aching legs to step closer. “If you cannot – “

“I will manage”.

“Lexa…”

“I want to be there”, Lexa sucked in a very deep breath. “I didn’t know them and… I might have… stuff to… do with the, you know with what, but I want to be there. I will manage to be there”.

“But you think it is safe?” Clarke tightened the blanket around her shoulders. “If they sent a hundred to kill you, then they will spare one or two to sneak in the funeral”.

“No one is going to come so close”.

“Snipers are a thing, Lex”.

The commander’s lips pulled back in a lopsided, sad smile. “They do not know what I look like. If they did, I would already be dead or… taken. They might know I live here, but I just walked through the city and no one blinked an eye”.

Clarke nodded but the tension remained on the muscles of her back.

“I’m…” Clarke didn’t want to say the thoughts in her head.

“What?” the commander of the revolution stepped closer, reached up, her knuckles brushing down Clarke’s cheek in a gentle caress.

Clarke couldn’t master the words, not when Lexa wasn’t a simple rebel, not when it was a few hours before the funeral of twelve dead people who had fought for ideals of a better world.

But at the same time, Clarke was so tired.

“Is it worth it?”

Green eyes blinked, pulp lips parted in surprise and Clarke was fast to reach out and take a hold of the front of Lexa’s sweater before the commander stepped back. “I’m feeling awful for even saying that. I’m just so scared and… tired. It has been fourteen months and all we see is… loss”.

The frowned eyebrows eased but the tightness of Lexa’s face didn’t melt away. She gulped and blinked and reached up to brush the blonde’s cheek again in a caress of light fingertips.

The words spilled from Clarke’s mouth before Lexa could form an answer. “I…” she shook her head, frustrated with herself. “I know loss isn’t the main thing of this; it’s not fair to say it is. We’re in a war… rebellion, revolution, whatever you want to call it but it is a civil war and loss is… it is a part, and I… I don’t miss the other part so it’s not fair to…”

“The other part?”

“People started this. _I was_ one of those who… who threw themselves in the rebellion in the very beginning, you know, ever since it was a movement as simple as protests of only a few dozens of people. I was one of those who… urged the people to take on more violent means in the beginning; even before they threw the army in the city. It was always some kind of… bet to fight and win it; getting the people to question the system’s whole structure, you know for… for revolution and then something new”.

Lexa placed her other hand on the back on Clarke’s neck but didn’t move, the green eyes flickering between the blue.

“And this new thing is now, we are trying to get there, whatever that is, whatever it is going to be built by the… the people. And to get there, we do need to… crush what stood as a system before and crush its people as well but…” Clarke breathed out a shaky breath and Lexa leaned down to press her forehead on hers, the gentle touch loosening a knot in her burning throat. “It is just so hard sometimes”.

“I know”.

“I’m sorry, you… you are the…” the title caught at her tongue, causing her voice to waver. “You shouldn't doubt the way things are going and…”

“Clarke”, the commander spoke quietly, causing blue eyes to flatter open and look up at deep green ones, “I understand”, she whispered, “and, please, never hesitate to tell me your thoughts about this. You are not the only one who has them”.

“The people are settling down”, Clarke rambled, “with the community jobs and these schools starting to open for the kids and the… most of the factories are working and I can see the life that is starting to be built”. Lexa nodded as the words spilled out, her face fond and her green eyes gentle. “Even the food is better”.

Lexa leaned in and took Clarke’s mouth in a gentle kiss, pulp lips moving so softly and sure that Clarke’s knees almost bent at the feel of them on her own.

“Tomorrow”, Lexa whispered and the blonde woman sucked in a sharp inhale. Hands reached out to pull at the waistband of Lexa’s jeans to bring her closer. “I will remind you tomorrow”.

“What do you mean?”

Lexa kissed Clarke again, as if to get out of answering the question. The urgent way the commander reached for her with hands and mouth and body had the thoughts melting away from Clarke’s head for a moment as every sense focused on the ways Lexa felt and tasted.

The sheets felt frozen and cold underneath Clarke’s covered back, and she was fast to untangle her hands from Lexa’s belt loops and brunette long hair to reach for the blankets and cover them both, against the chill air in the room. As soon as a cocoon had settled around them, Clarke tilted up, chasing the pulp lips as they pulled back for the moment it took Lexa’s sweater to be pulled from her lean body.

Short nails dragged down the tattooed back, leaving red marks behind and a gentle hissing pain that reminded Lexa of all the ways they were okay at this moment. The two pairs of hands rushed to the waistbands of tight pants, to belts and underwear, their movements rushing and hungry and so very needy to feel and touch and bring out breathy sounds.

Clarke choked back a sob as Lexa took her lips in another rough kiss, tears building up behind shut eyelids and burning down her dry throat. Clarke could feel her girl’s hands violently shaking as they took a hold of a thigh and a hipbone to press closer, to feel as much as possible.

“I love you”, Lexa moaned as Clarke reached between her legs and the words had the effect of loosening the knot in her throat, a tear managing to slip out of an eye and fall onto Lexa’s bare shoulder.

Burying her face in the long smooth neck, Clarke breathed in and felt the tension fall away with each heavy shudder of Lexa’s body, until the brunette’s muscles tightened and she brokenly cried out and Clarke reach up to wrap her arms around Lexa’s back and waist and wait for her to come down.

“I love you too”, Clarke mumbled over and over as her hands tightened into soft fists around the brunette long hair that spilled over Clarke’s thighs as they rested on her girl’s shoulders. There were two fingers inside her and a smooth tongue was moving on top of her clit, dragging out the very last weights of Clarke’s fear, grief and pain of having lived the things she had today.

For the first time since getting together, Clarke was the one falling asleep between Lexa and the room’s door, a loaded gun within reach and Lexa’s long arms wrapped around her waist from behind just as protectively.

* * *

Clarke had an arm wrapped around Lexa’s shoulder to keep her close, away from the cold winter rain and under the given umbrella. Below their boots, the concrete was a mess of water puddles of melted snow, ice and slippery mud. Chilling blows of wind waved in and out the mass of walking people, sneaking around them to harshly bite at any spot of bare skin and thin fabric. Their breaths came out as thin fog and there were coughs sounding in the short beats of collective silence that, at times, echoed over the city’s streets.

“ _Shannon Cher!_ ”

Clarke’s hand clenched around the handle of the dark green umbrella, the heavy rain having soaked the fabric of the LGBTQ colorful flag she had balanced in her backpack and dragging her down. Next to her, Lexa gripped at the wooden stick of her own red and black banner.

“Present!”

The strong shudders crushing through their bodies were not just from the freezing cold of the late winter. Clarke’s heartbeat grew heavier and deeper in her chest and her arm pulled Lexa closer. On her other side, Raven’s brown eyes met the blue ones and the friends shared a heavy look full of memories before looking forwards again.

“ _Kyle Kendell!_ ”

“Present!”

They had done this very thing countless times before.

Twelve more names today, twelve more rebels losing their life in the line of fire just because they had been in a wrong place, a wrong time. The Coalition did not usually call for memorial demonstrations with each death that took place, of course, they didn’t; the fallen rebels fighting in the States’ borders were sent back in huge tracks every night to be buried outside the city. But the day before was rough to witness – it had been an ambush in the middle of their homes, in the very middle of the city, there had been children and elders and simple civilians too close to those bullets.

The voice calling the names was faint over the sound of rain and wind and thousands of people breathing in union. The answering cry had the sound of united voices’ echo on the tall buildings, it had goosebumps appearing on the people’s skin, it had rough shivers crushing down the people’s spines.

“ _We honor the fallen with our fights!_ ” someone shouted and the voices repeated the words in the same rhythm, the sound pushing forward their steps to a stop.

“ _One minute of silence for our fallen companions_ ”.

Octavia’s heavy and cracked voice came from a speaker and Clarke inhaled the cold air at the pain in her friend’s tone. Raven let out a gentle curse in Spanish, lowered her head.

A lifetime ago, there would have been burning tear gas showering over the gathered people, the rain’s water would have been viciously shot at them by fire department’s unmovable trucks – its force knocking people on their backs, drenching their clothes, their faces, their lungs. An opposing force would have stood on the other side of the street, Tasers and shields and guns on their capable hands. Further down the road, a vehicle – armed and lethal – would have waited for the large demonstration to break through the outnumbered police forces to set it in some kind of motion, the machine gun on the top would have very surely and slowly turned towards the mass of raging people, the light of the burning flames warningly catching at the head of the muzzle.

“ _Never again!_ ” another voice cried out in time with Clarke’s thoughts and the blonde gulped as she forgot to shout along, her steps flattering slightly by the awe and grief and hope clutching at her chest. In these streets, the people were one in more than one sense; they shared more than one purpose or some dream or a roughened need for something peaceful, something different, something without constant loss.

There were times when they forgot, Clarke felt it so often as the times passed, when they forgot that they were together as equals and equally together. They would so often slip backward to their harsh individualism and need to survive a rough time as best as they could that they forgot to _be_ together like this.

Lexa stood tall and fierce next to her, a firm constant in the middle of the universe of people unsurely moving in various directions as they tried to find their footing on the crumpling world with only one thought in mind; something better? But where; how; and what would they know when they’d get to it? It was difficult to walk a path you had never walked before to get to something you hadn’t met before. It was easy to get lost here and there and lose hope when unintentionally hitting a wall.

And yet, Lexa did not seem to be one of them, one of the people stumbling around, forgetting and doubting their place in the world, doubting the world itself. Lexa was there to call for a demonstration like this when the people needed it without them even knowing, she was there to order a group of social workers to build a memorial of flowers and flags and candles in every key point of their battle; in the old police station, the ruins of the White House, the courthouse, in the various neighborhoods where people’s executions had taken place.

Slowly, Clarke pulled her arm from around Lexa’s shoulders, only to turn and wrap it right back around her. From her part, Lexa only frowned in question but did not ask anything, falling into the sudden embrace, closing her aching eyes as doing so. The commander felt Clarke heavily breathe out against her, the umbrella tilting to the side and letting the heavy drops of rain find one side of their coats.

“Thank you”, Clarke whispered in Lexa’s scarf and felt Lexa tighten her hold around her back. The blonde did not know if her girlfriend understood the meaning but she was glad when Lexa kept silent and didn’t ask. They would talk about it later.

A voice called out one more name and the united answer of the people had the two women shuddering against one another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honest thoughts about the chapter? 
> 
> Get to know Alexis Grigoropoulos. He was student and he was murdered by a cop twelve years ago in Athens. Today the demostrations of honering his memory and the rebellion that broke out after his death in 2008, were violently repressed by police forces in the name of protecting public health. Many comrades all over the country were violently arrested as well as beaten up.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got into another very looooooooong Clexa AU fic with sci-fi and technology and robots and the masterpiece Westworld is. I've never written sci-fi before and the words are like - phew - about 8.000 each chapter, maybe more. It is mostly self-explorative but yeah, I have one more reason to ask you to excuse the irregular updates.
> 
> Also, saddly, no protests or demostrations in my city, people. It makes the whole quarantine time so much harder. Please, point out any English mistakes, I didn't have the mental strength to search through this chapter at the moment.
> 
> Happy reading, folks! I have you're spending gorgeous holidays wherever you are!

Trigger Warning; violence, abduction, terrorism 

Lexa was sat on a cold bench in the middle of the street, green eyes scanning the people walking back and forth in the sidewalks, scanning the few cars driving by. The number of the vehicles had dropped even more in the last couple of months as more and more people gave up whatever ties linked them to distant places and posts. Only the workers of the city’s distant factories used their old cars to get to work and back home. The people contributed in the work needed to be done in the districts and the neighborhoods and the city center, having given up their previous jobs and thus, the need for a car.

The brunette woman shuddered against the December’s cold, burying her hands a lot deeper in the coat’s pockets. Lexa was currently soaked in the various Christmas decorations and excited energy, which buzzed around over the people and kids; the first Christmas after the declaration of the war. It was… it was something. Lexa did not really care of holidays – _she had never had_ – but the commander could feel the importance of them to the people, their need for something normal and comforting. Changing and growing and transiting were a slow process after all.

The sky had somehow cleared today, the dark clouds full of rain travelling elsewhere and the latest snow puffed out on every surface like a gentle blanket. She recalled the times Lexa had been called to work in the freezing temperatures like these, the snow covering the dirt and their boots and the logs of wood that had been carried to the factory to be cut into smaller pieces. She could remember walking home with a running nose and deep coughs gripping at her throat and her mother scowling at the state of her daughter coming home with a red face and a fever rising, only to get back to work the very next day because Lexa’s whole family needed the damn job, needed the money.

 _That was all over now_ , Lexa thought and sighed and looked around the road and the people for the person she dreaded to meet. For a moment, she thought of getting up and contacting Gustus on the radio so they could fly home. Her mother’s letters and words had lost some of the usual energy they always held, even on paper.

“I expected you bigger”.

The voice was unfamiliar and strong and Lexa felt a smirk tug at the corner of her lips because she didn’t expect anything else from the woman coming to sit next to her. It was dread and some kind of honor to finally meet this soldier – this mass destruction tamed in a woman’s body.

“Diyoza”, the commander greeted without looking at the older brunette woman but hyperaware of every twist and move made.

“Lexa”, the bomber replied. “That is not your real name though, is it?”

After so many years of being addressed as Lexa, the nickname had grown to be more of a real name than _Alexandria._ Her old co-workers used to love it – the air of royalty it held – soon enough it had stuck as an inside joke between them. Lexa’s tiny family, the only ones knowing her full identity, rarely called her Alexandria any more. Gustus and Anya didn’t dare to even _think_ of her full name nowadays, too paranoid to speak it out loud. Her mother wrote it down in her personal letters in case they fell into the wrong hands, to hide away any relation between her and the commander.

“I was glad you agreed to meet me”.

“I wouldn’t pass a chance to meet the commander”.

Lexa smirked, aware of dark brown eyes watching her closely. Lexa was aware of her status, of the way her presence and existence was known by everyone in the country – in the world. Very few knew how the commander was only following the orders of the county’s people rather than giving them. The piles and pieces of information the commander held though; those were a united knowledge, that was the reason why military and the secrete services tore down the world just to find her and use her to stop the revolution.

Jokes on them, even if captured, Lexa wasn’t going to talk.

“You are a child”.

She wanted to laugh because nearing her thirties wasn’t _that_ young.

She shrugged instead and shot a glance to the side to take in the brown eyes more clearly for a second. Lexa was curious. “What did you expect?”

“A bulletproof vest and not a beanie. You look too normal. Too young”.

Lexa shrugged again and could feel the older woman buzzing with questions. Time to get them out of the way; “Ask whatever you want to ask and then we will talk about what I have in mind”.

Diyoza smirked and tilted her head and a hand reached up to tug at her blue scarf. “I want to know why you trust me so much… I could have a photographer in the crowd to get a clear ass picture of you and sell it my military buddies”.

Lexa turned her head and met her eyes. She knew the possibility but she also knew Diyoza, the unwavering honor the woman held and her part in the beginning of the war. The bomber and her terrorism group hadn’t supported the Coalition in its early days despite the common enemy – fairly judging the Council and the Commander as too defensive against the rotten system that had left kids to die of starvation in the streets. Diyoza’s people were a group of action and force, while the Coalition was a calculated and calm beast.

 _Who was actually changing the world though?_ Lexa though to herself and cleared her throat to answer.

“I am offering you my trust”, she said quietly and Diyoza narrowed her eyes, leaning forward just slightly. Lexa took a peak of the corner of the scar on her neck and awe filled her being at the proof of the tales surrounding this woman. “The Coalition and Eligius have shared an unspoken truce through the last years, have a mutual respect. I thought of taking this as a base point for this meeting to happen.

”I also have a photographer of my own in crowd and if I go down, you go down. We already have someone to take my place”, she added in the end and watched a smirk appear on the woman’s mouth at the words, a nod of appreciation being sent Lexa’s way.

“Fair enough”, Diyoza said with another nod and relaxed on the bench, looking at the people walking around them. “Tell me what you want”.

Lexa clenched her jaw. “There is… a situation in Colorado. I was hoping of your help so we can clear the State once and for all”.

“Oh?”

“We had a massive win a few days ago. Military is cornered but getting rapid support by their air force. Paramilitary is crawling around the borders and pressing inside, the local people are the only ones holding them back, but they are getting overwhelmed. Rebels are finally coming down from the mountains, but they are trapped in the base of the hills because of dropping bombs. If we can’t liberate them from their positions the State is bound to fall into the enemies’ hands again and I cannot have that”.

“Air force is tricky”, Diyoza offered but her voice was slow and her eyes untrusting. A nod was a sign for Lexa to continue and get to the main point.

“I want Eligius to take down the bases around Colorado”, the commander quietly said and Diyoza looked away with a small shake of her head. It was thoughtful and so Lexa wasn’t worried. “It needs to be careful work; the Coalition will provide you any aid you might need; aircrafts, weapons, bombs, mechanics, rebels. I have to get my people away from the mountains at last”.

Diyoza looked at her. “You have the location of those air force bases?”

“Yes”. Lexa had them memorized. “Not with me though”.

“I presume you will sent someone to watch us if I agree to this”.

“It’d be stupid not to do so”.

“It would be. Why Eligius?”

“We don’t have experience with taking down targets like this”.

Diyoza nodded and it seemed like a thousand calculations were taking place in her mind. “I’m going to need to see those bases and their floor plans. I presume you’ll want me to take down the whole thing rather than just the planes?”

“Yes”.

Diyoza tilted her head to the side. “How many?”

Lexa hesitated for a moment. “Three at first, it will give my people time to get to the mainland. One base won’t make much of a difference. Two bases are good but they will be able to recover again in no time. Three bases are going to throw them off for a while. We can go from there”.

“How many are around?”

Lexa did a dismissive move with her chin. “Those three are the most important”.

“And the trip to Colorado?”

“One of the generals will fly with you to Loveland. The pilot is trusted. You’ll land on the borders with Kansas and then in a rebel base close by. The ambassadors of both States will be waiting for you there to inform you of the exact details I can’t give you about the precise locations of the targets”.

“What can you give me?”

Diyoza watched an emotionless mask fall over the commander’s face, a sign that the young woman did not like the words. The bomber smirked to herself; she was never one to do _charity_ , even if the exhilaration of wrapping a building up in mushrooms of flames and smoke was a priceless act on its own. But Diyoza had a kid to provide for. Let the Coalition in their bubble of cute ideals and humanitarian approaches that had an expiring date, Diyoza knew the selfishness in the human nature would win over in the end despite of how many assholes they’d take out in the process.

“What do you want?”

“I will need to talk to the rest of my people”.

The commander turned away with a nod.

“How will I contact you?” Diyoza asked and was surprised to see Lexa stand from the bench. The kid with the piercing green eyes patted away a few light snowflakes from her clothes.

“You cannot contact me”, Lexa said but the words didn’t held anything superiority, it wasn’t a show off of power. It was said like a simple statement, like a situation that needed to be fixed for Diyoza’s sake. The bomber was pleasantly surprised by it. “In the gallery”, the girl said with voice made of stone. “In two days, I will be waiting for your answer. If you agree, we can go over the plan”.

“Two days is too soon”, Diyoza frowned when the brunette shrugged and readjusted a back pack on her shoulder.

“My people are freezing in the mountains”, Lexa said and green eyes pierced right through her soul. “I don’t have time. If you agree to help me, I will see you then”.

The brunette walked away without a goodbye and Diyoza smirked to herself as she watched her back. A few steps away, a huge man with a beard and a face tattoo fell into step with Lexa, the two of them being swallowed by the mass of walking people.

A figure collapsed onto the bench next to Diyoza with a groaning sigh and the older woman didn’t spare him a glance, still staring at the direction Lexa had disappeared from sight.

“I have some nice pictures of the sexy lady”, he said in the freezing air. “Who knew the commander would be so pretty”.

Diyoza shook her head. “Burn them down”.

“You sure, boss? They’re a lot of money. I can think of five different agencies that will pay for them. Give me ten minutes and I will be able to think of fifteen”.

“I’m positive, McCreary. This is a far better job”.

“Our loss”, the man mumbled as he took out a lighter and burned the photos in his hand. He used the flaming paper to light up his cigarette. “What are we bombing this time?”

Diyoza smirked to herself. “Air force bases in Kansas”.

“Whoa, a trip I always wanted to take. Is she coming with?”

“I hear she is a lesbian”.

He huffed, “I can turn her”.

“You are a sexist pig. Do not let Hope hear you speak like this _ever_ ”.

“Come on, we all know I’m just talks. I have eyes only for you and my daughter”.

Diyoza scowled. “Let’s go, McCreary. We got an emergency meeting to call”.

-

“She agreed?” Indra asked again, disbelief in her voice and Lexa nodded one more time, without turning to gaze at the older woman. “I don’t trust this plan, Lexa”.

“It is done”. Lexa shrugged, fingers tracing over the red circles on the map in front of her. She could feel Indra and Titus buzzing around with tension and the commander fought against the urge to roll her eyes at them both.

“I believe the general is right”, Titus cut through and Lexa did roll her eyes this time, sure that Indra did the glaring for her, despite having her anxiety supported. “We do not work with terrorist”.

“Eligius has never bombed us”, Lexa reminded them. “We have a common enemy for the time being and Diyoza seems honorable. She won’t backstab us”.

“You are too trusting, commander”, Titus gulped.

Lexa glanced up at him. The man was wrapped up in dull clothes of brown and black and dark greens, the fabric long and hanging around him more like robes. In the faint candlelight, his shaved head was glistering, giving her an unsettling feeling. He came from some town in Oregon but, truth be told, Lexa didn’t know anything more about him. Titus always spoke with knowledge and depth and he had probably read more books than those resting in the various bookcases in the current house the meeting was taking place.

If the people of Oregon had sent him here, then Lexa had no reason to doubt him for the time being. After all, the man was loyal to the cause and didn’t hesitate to speak his mind when he judged so.

Lexa didn’t have to _like_ him though.

“Oh, let her be, Titus”, a new voice echoed in the room and the familiar older man of the Council stepped into the room while shaking off his coat. Dante Wallace walked in with a scent of free air and wet ground, a soft smile on his wrinkled pale face. The man stood in a grey vest over a light blue bottom up shirt, black pants ending in old black boots. An umbrella hung from his wrist and Lexa turned her eyes back on the map in front of her, thinking that he looked too put together compared to the rest of the people in the house.

“You think it is wise then?” Titus asked him and the other man shrugged.

“No, not wise, but if we are careful and prepared, we won’t be caught off guard. We already have people watching the Eligius group and their families”.

Lexa scowled at the reminder. Unnecessary violence and threats and betrayals; if, _in any way_ , Diyoza found out the Coalition was watching her young daughter, nothing was going to save them from the woman’s fury.

“How is your successor, Lexa?”

Lexa glared at Dante and the man’s kind smile lost some of its light under the hard gaze. He was getting out of line. “Nothing is going to happen”, she replied instead. “We have other matters to talk about for now. Eligius will be discussed tomorrow”.

“As you wish, commander”, Titus said, looking pained at doing so.

With a cutting gaze to the clock, Lexa asked; “Where are the others?”

“Arriving”, Anya’s voice called out as she stepped inside the house, shaking the fresh snow from her cap. “It is snowing outside but not too cold”.

Dante laughed – a rich, full sound – joyful. “Perfect weather for Christmas”.

 _It didn’t feel like Christmas_ , Lexa thought and her mind travelled to Clarke, her girl’s bright smile this morning and the disappointed understanding in her blue eyes at the discovery that Lexa couldn’t let go of her duties at times like these.

They would meet downtown later tonight, at a small festival being held by a group of people Bellamy had introduced to Clarke and Raven and they spent time with lately. Most of people would spend the night with their families and patrol had taken time off considering the quietness of the Reapers since the Court House. Even the borders seemed quiet these days.

The weeks passed all too fast for Lexa’s liking.

With a heavy sigh, Lexa let the faint chatter of the people around fill the house with its sound, the commander forcing her aching eyes to look back at the maps on the table in front of her.

-

A huge bonfire burned in the middle of the clearing and there was a line of Christmas lights – turned off since there was no power – was wrapped around the branches of the trees, the flames reflecting on the colors of the glass. Equally colorful plastic balls hung from every surface, vertical and horizontal, and decorated the park further into the traditional way.

People sat around in chairs and logs and on tables being brought into the park and it seemed like more than just the group of friends had arrived to the party. Lexa could spot Bellamy and Octavia in the distance, Lincoln standing to the side with that man – Nyko – Lexa recalled his name. A woman around her age was under Bellamy’s arm, gorgeously laughing at something Octavia was saying. To the sides of the clearing, a few older people stood around in couples or smaller groups looking unfamiliar with the rest of the people around but still welcomed.

Close to the bonfire, three young men were playing music – cheesy Christmas songs and old hits that brought laughter out of the gathered people.

Lexa felt at ease around them. Anya was scowling by her side.

“Hi! Hey! Hello”, a young woman called out with a bright grin, bouncing closer as she saw them stepping into the clearing. As she came closer, the girl’s eyes widened.

“Oh my God, _chief_ ” she addressed Lexa and the cousins shared a look. “Hey, huh, I’m Harper! I’m in patrol with Bellamy Blake, I don’t know if you know him, but you must know Lincoln, right? I am in his group but I know both of you from around the streets and huh, welcome, chiefs, I do not have many things to offer, just company”.

The girl’s rumbling brought smiles on both of their faces.

“Company is fine”, Lexa smiled at her and Harper nervously nodded, waving over at Octavia, who brightened at the sight of Lexa and Anya.

“I hear Clarke and Raven are on their… huh… on their way and…” at Anya’s glare she stumbled over the words “…and that was out of line, right? I mean, ma’am, I did not mean to comment on your personal life and… and…”

Well, that was getting out of hand. Lexa buried an elbow in Anya’s side and smiled at the girl in hopes of stopping the awkwardness of the whole thing. “It’s okay”.

“Yeah, of course, sure, sure, I… huh… I will see you around, ma’am… huh… chiefs”.

Harper seemed to curse herself before spinning around on her heels and walking away with a shake of her head. It gave Lexa the time to glare at her smirking cousin.

“Look at what you did”, she mumbled and Anya’s smirk deepened.

“It was funny”.

“You scared the girl, Anya. We must not scare people”.

Anya chuckled to herself.

“Hey, you are here!” Octavia was bouncing closer with wide steps and Lexa stiffened, not having spent much time with Clarke’s childhood friend. Unlike Raven, Octavia did not seem to know of Lexa and Anya’s status in the Coalition and the Council, making it impossibly hard to act like simple rebels.

It was easy to hide the steeled authority and the depth of information resting in her head. However, talking like a simple fighter or even a simple chief, who lived in some completely different ways, that was difficult to do. Lexa did not really remember the last time she had had _fun_. Asking Clarke out was the most normal thing she had done in the last years.

_Thank god, it hadn’t ended in a disaster._

“What’s new, Blake?” Anya asked with a tired sigh and Octavia looked at her up and down with a laser gaze and without a care on the world. Lexa _had_ _to_ smirk at that.

“Same old”, Octavia answered in the same uninterested tone and Lexa’s green eyes met the gaze of the one and only Bellamy Blake, who looked like he was frowning all too hard at them.

He seemed to whisper something to the brunette woman under his arm and quickly parted from the small group around them, keeping his gaze on Lexa the whole time, a hint of a smile on his face. With each step he took closer, Lexa relaxed, not having to deal with the bickering pair of Anya and Octavia.

“ _Came to save you_ ”, Bellamy mouthed at her and winked, confirming her thoughts. He stepped closer and wrapped an arm around his sister, halting the wave of tense words coming out of Octavia’s mouth. Lexa grabbed her cousin’s shoulder in a tiny but tight lock, keeping her still.

“O, be civil”, Bellamy laughed and Octavia seemed to bite the inside of her cheek.

“I don’t know what you are talking about”.

Lexa tightened her hold before Anya had time to scoff.

A distant yell muffled out Bellamy’s sarcastic reply.

The festive mood of the park’s clearing was breaking out in rapid movements of weapons been pulled out and pairs of heavy boots pounding the icy and wet ground.

And – _one week –_ one _quiet_ week was all Lexa was asking for them to have. One tiny week of not having a group of Reapers terrorizing the people of this city, taking and killing and murdering innocents all over the town. This was all she was asking at this point.

The gathered people were sprinting like a united front, crushing out of the thin trees and into the slippery concrete street, the cold penetrating through their throats and lungs as if it was spears of ice, –

Oh, _oh,_ no, no, no, n _o!_

“Raven!” Anya cried out.

The first thing Lexa saw was Raven, screaming from her place on the concrete street, a step away from the fallen crutches. A large group of black shadows leaned over her and muscled and gloved hands violently pulled at the leg prosthetic, while they were also ripping the pack from the mechanic’s shoulders.

Anya darted forwards and Lexa barely managed to reach out a hand. Fingers clawed at the fabric of her cousin’s coat – barely in time to pull at the cloth and tackle Anya to the ground, the crack of a warning gunshot ringing out.

Away but still too close.

“No!” Octavia was shouting above them, a finger on the trigger but never pulling it. Her brown eyes wildly flipped over the masked heads and her lips were pushed back in a dangerous snarl. “M _otherfuckers_!”

“ _Back! Back all of you!_ ” a muffled voice sang and Lexa lifted her head from its place between Anya’s heaving shoulder blades. A hand roughly pulled Raven on one leg, a group of arms holding her up and secured against them. Any snapping trail to break free was halted easily, the woman hanging between them, looking absolutely feral, like a captured wild animal ready to bloodily strike at its captors.

The air dried in the middle of her throat, viciously catching and painfully gripping at the airway. Reapers stood in the shadows and the darkness of the night, masks only showing their glimmering eyes. Lexa could not make out the limits of where the tall bodies started, where they ended. The Reapers were armed with sniper and assault rifles and an impressive number of rocket launchers, in capable looking hands. They weren’t as many as the rebels standing on the other side of the street but the losses of a battle like this would leave more corpses than living people.

Among the mass of black, Clarke’s blonde hair stood out like a beacon of bright light.

“ _No_ ”, Lexa’s quiet voice broke and the blue eyes zeroed in her own green ones.

“You don’t want a bullet in their pretty little heads, do you?” one of the masks called out and the black metal of a handgun reflected the faint light of the lamp to the side of the sidewalk.

Clarke shook her head at Lexa, as soon as her aching legs straightened up and away from a very frozen Anya. Hard green eyes did a quick scan; fifteen to twenty masked heads popped up against the faint light – five more bodies kept between them, both Clarke and Raven among them. They were held like shields against the rebels’ heavy loaded up guns and Lexa had a feeling the three civilians next to Clarke, were known by the people standing around Lexa.

“That’s what I thought”, the same voice called out and Lexa felt her spine snapping up as tight anger coiled in the base of her gut. “We will be leaving now, with these folks. Do not try to follow or we will put these bullets in, yeah?”

“Lexa…” Anya snarled at the commander but the green eyes didn’t dare to look away from Clarke, who kept shaking her head at Lexa, the blue eyes wide with something like horror – not for the Reapers around, but for anything Lexa might do and set off a deathly exchange of smoking bullets that would surely leave the commander on the ground.

“Lexa, do _something_!”

Lexa’s jaw clenched tighter.

“Commander”, Octavia hissed as well and the title had heads snapping toward Lexa.

The title was carried by the quiet air and eyes widened when Lexa didn’t even flinch at being called as the Revolution’s leader. Both Bellamy and Lincoln visibly jolted a step away in surprise but Lexa did not look at the two men or at the group of rebels shifting – stunned – at the revelation.

In her mind, Lexa’s thoughts took a pause because… she hadn’t planned it like this. It was supposed to be quiet, her name wasn’t supposed to come out for a few years up until the revolution of this country had steady feet and fewer and weaker enemies. It was supposed to happen when the leader’s replacement was already in command of the war and rebels for a few months. The word was going to spread as fast as fire on dead straw and Aden was still trapped in a place Lexa couldn’t physically reach at the moment.

She sighed quietly.

It didn’t matter now.

The Reapers had started to back away with the five hostages and Lexa took an equal step forward, silently backing them as they slipped into the shadows of the buildings behind them. Her hand had snapped to the side of her backpack and had taken out a radio, her eyes following Clarke – only Clarke – as the device cracked to life near her mouth.

“ _Radio down, lady!_ ” someone shouted at her, but the snarl deepened on her face, as Indra’s voice came through the static. Clarke seemed to heave for a breath under the secured headlock one of the Reapers had put her in and, at the sight of struggle, the commander felt her fingers shaking – tightening. Burning bile coiled in the bottom of her gut.

“The park downtown”, Lexa growled into the radio to the war general. “Now, Indra”.

“ _I’m calling patrol from_ …”

“All over the city”, Lexa’s hard voice cut through. Between the Reapers, one of her people taken did a fruitless trail to break away, his movements halted by a vicious punch to the side of his jaw. Next to them, Clarke’s face twisted with clear anger and she snapped something to the masked heads and her shoulder jolted to shrug off a rough grip. She didn’t succeed and the headlock tightened.

Lexa watched her girlfriend’s body shudder, mouth parting for breath. Clarke’s pale skin flushed in a deep red color and doctor’s fingers reached up weakly grasp at the forearm around her trapped throat.

The commander felt impossibly cold, fury freezing into something steady – harder – threatening.

“We need to have them cornered. They have five hostages”.

“ _Stay out of it, Lexa_ ”.

Blue eyes snapped back up onto her as if she heard Indra’s voice from across the empty space between them. Lexa felt her jaw tightening. “No”.

“ _Lexa!_ ” Indra growled on the radio. “ _Stay back_ ”.

“We are ending this bullshit with the Reapers tonight”.

The last shadow of a man started to slip in the shadows and the muscles on Lexa’s body locked up against the urge to run after them. Her free hand had also reached back, this one searching for the gun that had found a place in the back of her pants under her long coat.

From the side of the road, a commotion was heard and Lexa did not have to turn to know the first patrol team approached the site. Without realizing it, Lexa snapped an order to the chief of the team, to take the fighters to the side of the neighborhood to block the Reapers from escaping the other side. Anya had found a place next to Lexa by now, rifle on her shoulder and brown eyes dull with raging anger as they looked in the mouth of the alley the Reapers had disappeared through.

Lexa strapped the radio on her belt and reached into a pocket, taking out the old and cracked Android cellphone. The rebels’ eyes focused on it with bright confusion and shocked awe. Lexa did not even try to hide anymore, fingertips patting at the screen, before bringing the phone to her ear.

Titus answered after the very first beat, his voice panicked and eager to talk to Lexa.

“Call a Council in half an hour”, Lexa growled into the phone as she finally stepped in the shadows of the alley.

Combat boots knocked against a ripped pack on the ground and Lexa only spared a glance at it, before moving farther down the alley, green eyes aching to make out anything in the darkness.

“In the gallery downtown”.

Behind her, the group of rebels from the park had followed her and Anya with steady breaths and trying to protect the revealed commander like it was second nature, like it was the only logical thing to do.

“ _Yes, Commander_ ”, Titus answered and Lexa was hanging up before he could ask of the hour and the open, unhidden location in the middle of the town.

The next call came through a bit slower and each beat had tight panic coiling down to the core of Lexa’s body.

But as expected, Echo picked up dutifully, the woman’s voice a bit breathless and a lot surprised. “ _Lexa_ ”.

“Meet me in the gallery now”, Lexa growled into the phone. “Bring everything you have found about the Reapers’ bases in the city”.

“ _You got it, Commander. I’m on my way_ ”.

Around the corner, a lone lamp post spilled its light on the dirty pavement of a wide parking lot. It was quiet and empty and the only way the Reapers could have taken to get out of the alley they had walked through, but despite that, despite the visible way of going, the Reapers were nowhere to be found.

Lexa lowered the gun, breathing speeding up as she took a few useless steps into the square place. Three equally lonely cars were parked to the sides, the metal of the old vehicles rusted and their tires damaged. A soft layer of snow covered the surfaces of them and pooled on the far sides of the parking lot, while a clear trail of messy boot-prints rested in the middle as an uneven waving path.

Still, no Reaper was walking to carefully get away to the end of the parking lot. It was as if the ground had opened up and swallowed them away from sight.

“What the fuck?” Anya straightened her back, wild eyes looking over the space right in front of them. The rest of the rebels came to stand around the two women as well and just as doubtful and surprised by emptiness of the parking lot.

“Where are they?” Lexa snapped as the patrol team appeared from the other side to the end of the parking lot. The buildings rose up above them mockingly and Lexa felt anger grasp at her stomach. “Find them”.

“Where?” Octavia looked at Lexa with calm and dangerous eyes.

“Get inside the buildings”, Lexa met her gaze. “They cannot be far from here”.

“Do we open up the apartments?”

Lexa paused.

Anya was ready to nod, but at the commander’s clear hesitation, she also halted her movements, brown eyes meeting her cousin’s darkening green under the lowered light. For the first time, Lexa looked caught off guard and, thankfully, it lasted a split second, before the commander was giving a firm nod.

“Find any trace they left”, she told Lincoln and Octavia to tell their own patrol teams. She turned to Anya as she took out the radio again, knowing Indra was there.

“ _Commander_ ”, the war general sounded breathless as well.

“Lock down the district around the park”, Lexa ordered. Anya shifted under the hard eyes and waited for the orders the commander seemed to have for her. “They can’t get away, do you understand me?”

“ _I do, Commander. Most of the teams are there by now_ ”.

“Move them into formation. And you will be listening to Anya while I am in a Council meeting. Anything she says, you do it”.

“ _Will do_ ”.

Anya took a hold of her upper arm. “Where do you want me?”

“Right here. I will send Echo to you with information about every safe-house she has found in the area. Send teams to every single one of them, rip apart every inch of these rooms, until you find them. We will leave the sons of a bitch with no place to hide”.

Brown eyes looked up at Lexa and she deeply nodded. The freezing air of the winter suddenly bit down at the exposed skin of their bodies, sending shudders down their backs, sucking out the warmth the harsh movements had produced. Lexa took in an inhale of razor sharp air, feeling the heartbeat in her chest pound harder against her ribcage. Greyish eyes looked around the empty parking lot and felt a scratching knot of panic crawl down her dry throat.

“One more thing”, Lexa took in a deep breath. “I want your bike”.

Keys were pressed into the bare cold palm of Lexa’s hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I did have them take Clarke again. I know it was rough last time but, listen, she was a target, okay? I had the build up for a while. And... And I might have read a book of a man in a civil war and how he was constantly been taken from wherever he found a shelter and... yeah, I had them take Clarke again... sorry.
> 
> But like. I rushed to post this before christmass! And the Clexa christmass week of 2020 is like happening and so you have so many cute and fun fics to read and blow off any anger you might have toward me for having them take Clarke again and... yeah. I feel bad for going down that path again.
> 
> Trigger Warning; it is also going to be slightly darker than last chapters as well. Sorry. Love you. Thank you for reading. Leave a comment, I adore talking to you, your words turn me in a happy little writter.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not a happy chapter but listen, i've had a lot of wine tonight.
> 
> Like a lot. 
> 
> And i love this story, guys, like I dont know, I'm in the movement and shit is so difficult with the virus. So fucking difficult. My mom isnt working and my dad is like not paid much and fuck, guys, people are like starting to starve? I don't know. Shit is difficult. So take this chapter, the story makes me feel better. I can't write why beause thoughts and wine is not like good together but shit, it does. So take a chapter.
> 
> Happy reading. Take care of yourselves.

The screeching sound of brakes being pulled roughly echoed in the crowded street outside the gallery’s building. The green Ducati stood out against the dark concrete and the sidewalks, which looked like they were abandoned somewhere in time. The city looked old and young at the same time – making the polished motorcycle look out of place.

Heads turned as Lexa dismount, taking off the black helmet and adjusting the coat tighter around her body to warm up the aching muscles. It had been a while since she’d rode anything this fast and desperate, and was more than glad to be able to stand on steady ground again. Greyish green eyes took in the way the Revolution’s fighters paused to look at her, gearing up movements slowing for a few moments.

She wondered if word had gotten to them; of who she really was.

There was no time to think about it.

Echo stood in the front double doors of the building, scanning the rush of movement that had burst out. Dark eyes snapped to Lexa as soon as the motorcycle parked next to her own and the woman took a moment to herself to simply watch the brunette’s figure, always taken aback by the way Lexa seemed to hold the commander and her own self in perfect balance.

“What happened?” Echo cut through without the usual greeting.

Lexa strutted past her with a grunt. The rebels turned to watch her walk through the gallery with determined steps, which could easily send vibrations through the floor’s tiles. They watched the newly revealed commander with frowns of hesitant awe and confusion; unable to fit Lexa and the commander in the same face just yet.

“They took five, right in front of me”, Lexa snapped with a voice freezing, dangerous, unbreakable. She pushed open a side door that led into a closet-turned-office. One hand snapped with a wide movement to crush off of a table’s surface the items left on it.

Echo didn’t waste time from reaching into a boot and taking out a folded map of the city. Washington DC stared at them from the wrinkled paper, covered in stains of dirt and liquid, marked with blue pen ink, letters and numbers noting various buildings in a web of uncovered bases of the Reapers organization.

“Here”, Lexa pressed a finger to the road near the center park, calculating dark eyes having found the parking lot in the organized mess of buildings and printed letters. It was a surprise to find the area surrounded by many tiny black circles, handmade thin straight lines connecting them to side notes.

For a moment, Lexa could on blink down at the paper, surprised to find Reaper bases so close to the place the general meetings took place when the weather was okay, so close to one of the busiest districts of the city due to the rebel bases around and the main market the Coalition and patrol had set up there.

“This was planned”, Echo was saying. A bare finger pocked out of the fingerless glove the investigator had put on and pointed a wide area around the spot Lexa had shown her. With a shift movement, Echo reached inside the jacket, an inside pocket, to take out another piece of paper.

This one was a sheet of white tracing paper; thin, faint and dark pencil marks having created another map that fitted on top of the city’s printed one. Some of the pencil lines trailed the city’s roads, but most of them created paths through the buildings, through the alleys. It was an anarchic mess of twisting corners and shorter straight lines, which very smoothly connected the marked black dots on the opaque darker paper underneath.

The parking lot Lexa had lost Clarke in stood in the middle of spider web of lines that swiftly ducked through the buildings and smoothly jumped to others with no trouble at all, in so many other webs and uncountable intersections.

“What?” Lexa huffed. One of her hands had tightened in a fist, which turned Lexa’s knuckles white. “How is this not known by the patrols?” she nearly shouted.

There was a dangerous glint in Echo’s eyes but she didn’t care. “You told me to be district and keep everything to myself”.

“The people have their general meetings here”, Lexa growled in the very same tone, tapping at the maps.

“If they want to know what happens or who attends the general meetings, they can very well walk through one – unmasked and fine. It doesn’t matter the bases are so close”.

“We are clearing the area”, Lexa snapped. “Today. I want prints of these maps to get to every patrol team in this city. Even to the borders of this land”.

Dark eyes narrowed. “What about my investigation?”

“You will get another one. Where can they have taken them in so short time?”

“Tell me the numbers”.

“Fifteen to twenty Reapers and armed with heavy weaponry. Five hostages, one of them disabled and needing more than three men to carry her so they could keep up with the rest of the group. They slowly walked back from here, and the only way we could go, was this one, to the parking lot. A patrol team rounded the block about the same time, didn’t spot anyone coming out from the other side. They expected us to follow them”.

“Alright, they obviously ducked inside the apartment buildings around this alley. My guess is they’d expect you to start searching the apartments – look here, this is one base, I also found a few days ago, not many things in it other than files and maps and a few boxes of ammo, they could have stored the heavy weaponry there and taking them out in time”.

Lexa send a look at the radio and phone she’d placed on the table next to the map to be sure she would spot the reports Indra and Anya would send as soon as they found anything.

“The hostages?”

Echo shook her head. “They’d split them up”, she said, long fingers spreading on the maps. “I advise you to open up the apartments of the buildings but know there are families who live in them and you…”

“It’s already done”, Lexa cleared her throat.

Echo nodded. “If not in the apartments, then go to the basements. I have a theory; they have opened up paths underground to carry the weaponry you are describing”.

Lexa huffed out a breath, trying to keep her temper. There was no way the Coalition could have missed a secret underground web of Reaper trails – it was unacceptable at least, to find out after a whole year into this cold war of smooth terrorist attacks and missing civilians. Yelling at Echo was not a priority at the moment.

The radio cracked with Indra’s voice and Lexa sighed heavily, taking a hold of the boxed plastic and lifting it to her mouth.

“ _We found an apartment with weapons_ ”, she confirmed and Lexa nodded to Echo to mark down the place of the room. “ _There are stains of fresh blood, shredded masks, one of our fighters found a USB stick inside a drawer_ ”.

Echo’s eyes seemed to light up and she nodded at Lexa with meaning.

“Give the USB to Anya to give to our investigator”, Lexa mumbled. “Send warriors to the basements and see if you can find any tunnels down there. There is a very good possibility they have some kind of underground system of transporting”.

“ _Do we continue the search of the apartments? The people living here are objecting to the searches_ ”.

“Tell them what happened before getting in”, Lexa rubbed at her forehead. “Anyone can be a Reaper at this point. I will send Echo to Anya with a map of Reaper bases in the surrounding buildings of this area so you can narrow down the search. Tell me if you found those tunnels”.

“ _Yes, Commander_ ”.

Lexa gulped and turned to Echo, who was writing down on the map. “Five hostages, Echo, where can they take them in such short time?”

“They’ll get them back in the same building, we know, they do not risk keeping them separated”, Echo was nodding to herself. “These are the unused buildings I have not checked yet; a couple of empty floors in the middle, thick walls, spaces wide enough to keep many people inside and mostly out of sight from the center roads but in the middle of the city as well. Connected to direct paths with this area you showed me”.

Lexa nodded, grabbing at the phone and radio. “I trust you. Get those to Anya here and work together. I have a Council meeting and I will join you as soon as I can”.

Echo seemed to hesitate as she packed the maps. “Commander, shouldn’t you… not be in these searches? It is kind of dangerous”.

A knot settled in Lexa’s throat and she could feel her own eyes hardening at the way desperate frustration boiled in the middle of her chest at the words. Soon enough, it would be known to the whole city; who Lexa really was; the Reapers among the ones who would hear the news. There was no practical way to be hidden now – to not be out in the streets with the rest of the people to address the news and the questions they’d all have. She needed to contact Aden in Colorado as soon as possible, so the young man could fly over to Washington DC and the Council and take Lexa’s place in the lead of this war. The blond guy, with the trimmed faint beard and bright sky blue eyes Lexa had only met once before in her life, needed to be freed from the base of the Colorado’s mountains in the next hours and fly across the country to get to Lexa now.

And on top of everything else, Lexa wasn’t going to stay put again, when Clarke was taken for a second time. She wasn’t going to do that mistake again.

Determination flared up inside her heart and Lexa straightened her back, looking Echo in the eye, as anger flued the adrenaline rushing through her blood.

“We are ending this war with the Reapers today”, Lexa stated in the quiet air of the tight room, greyish green eyes flashing as Echo nodded with something like steeled loyalty and wonder at the commanding tone of Lexa’s voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soooooooooooo this wasn't scheduled, i just drowned like a bottle of wine and yeha, here you go, just one filler scene
> 
> Comments. About the plot or whatever. Don't drink too much, i just had an internet concert of fine Greek rap and hip hop and PHEW what the fuck so beautiful songs we have, i am so sad you wouldn't understand. concert to solidarity to the workers working in like.. hotels and bars and restaurants and cafes and shit, they are so close to starving, man, shit is bad. Fuck fucking capitalism i swear to god, fuck this system, so many fucking people are living in povery and fuck it, dude, just Jesus Christ, this is not how life is supposed to be you know. Fuck fucking capitalism.


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear, American folks, what the actual fuck is happening over there 😂😂 But seriourly, take care of yourselves, Jesus Christ, I imagine cops are gonna be like extra rough from now on. Your fascists are like.. too much, God, take care take care.
> 
> So, I started - and finished - the wilds. Saw it a couple of times actually and, ahh, reminds me of early Clexa, guys. The fandom is a bit young and I have a bit of trouble writting for Shoni because like, teeangers are difficult to potray but, huh, I'm trying my best.
> 
> Also, happy new year. I know it's a bit late but well, I wish it to you. Leave a comment on the chapter. Tell me how 2021 is treating you so far. Cheers.
> 
> Our Clarke is gonna appear in the next chapter, sorry for the luck of Clexa in these last two parts!

“Commander…” Titus didn’t seem able to shut his mouth as the piles of information were thrown at his face. The older white man had paled as soon as Lexa had uttered the words about the public reveal of her leadership position, and the rosy color had yet to return.

On the other hand, Lexa didn’t have time for any kind of meltdowns. She felt cold and hot, muscles aching and buzzing and trembling, cramping under the tight flashes of anxiety. Twisting fingers constantly pressed against one another, knuckles turned pink. Every shudder of breath felt heavier than the last.

It didn’t stop the wave of words that spilled from the commander’s cutting tongue.

“You all need to find replacements for the Council”, Lexa was saying. In two days, the whole world would know of Lexa and her family, would make connections to the people she was seen with and to the places she was spotted in. The safety protocols sounded rusty but Lexa had trust in the people who had marked them down early on, when the Council was only a group of seven communists talking about the demonstrations in New York City nearly four years ago.

“Send ambassadors back to your States, call for meetings with war generals and have new members elected for this Council. I will be out in the streets with the people today, and so I need you to focus on it on your own. I want the new members here by the day after tomorrow”.

While Lexa listed of their duties, Dante seemed to pale just as Titus. He lifted a hand to get her attention for a moment. “Lexa, if you allow me, I do not think this is a time for the Council to…”

_It was exactly the time._

“It is an order”, she snapped with sharp voice and even sharper eyes.

He seemed to jerk at the command and Lexa took a split second to watch the way he fumbled with the blue scarf he’d loosely wrapped around his neck. _Again_ , this old man was way too put together than the rest of the people of the Council; dressed as if his country had never fallen into a civil war that had left its people physically and mentally worn out.

“I want them right in this room the day after tomorrow, get it down”, Lexa harshly repeated. “Within the week, the new Council and the new Commander will have to take things into their own hands”.

“Where is the new Commander?” Dante gulped, fingers tightening around his scarf.

“He will be here within the week”, Lexa met his gaze with emotionless eyes. “It is not your concern where or who he is, for the time being. Secrecy is still needed until we are officially done with the Reapers”.

Fifty people nodded back at her in agreement, allowing Lexa to lean back over the piles of paper on the table in front of her. So many things needed to be organized and checked over, but Lexa’s mind could not focus on them. Not when she was longed to be out in the snowed streets.

“I have a meeting with Eligius in an hour”, Lexa pointed out. “After I am done with it and find out they safely departed Washington DC, I will stand by our rebel army. By New Year’s Eve, I want the leader of the Reapers found and every Reaper base torn down”.

Eight nodding heads, four heads shaking.

Dante stood from his chair. “Lexa, please, there is _really_ no need for you to be in the streets! Our numbers can perfectly handle –“

“I won’t discuss this more, Dante”. The green eyes snapped on him with a scorching gaze that shouted a warning.

He didn’t get it. A hand shot out and took a hold of Lexa’s upper arm, in a way not at all appropriate. Every muscle on her body locked tight as the woman fought the urge to shrug him off in instinct.

“Nothing has changed!” the man rushed to speak. “You were just revealed as the Leader of this rebellion and you are the main suspect of every secret service all over the world. Whatever is left from the CIA in this city is going to come after you in the next hour. Paramilitary will leave every other State in this country and fly over to DC to join the Reaper Army. Not to mention the National Army; they’re going to start dropping missiles again. You have enemies everywhere, Lexa, this is really not the time to call for a… a guerrilla against the Reapers. We need to keep you safe until your successor comes to town and take your place”.

If Lexa’s enemies geared up in a determined effort to end the Revolution of the American people, then the commander was going to do the exact same thing. Dante was right – but at the same time, he was not, because the Reapers and paramilitary and CIA only had the means to win a war in the shadows. Lexa wasn’t one to fight in the dark.

Clarke had once said Lexa was the more threatened and threatening person existing in what had become the United States of America. And Lexa was about to prove her girlfriend right.

“They will not kill me”, Lexa stated and slowly shrugged off the man’s hand from her arm. “They already know the commander does not work alone and if I were gone, a new commander would be here to take my place. I know of every ambassador, every safe house, every Council member there was and is going to be. So the bombs to kill me at this time of the war will only have more people joining the Coalition and our rebel army. As for the Paramilitary, the borders of every State are secured with our warriors and anti-Airforce weapons – no soldiers or fascists are getting in or out of their States”.

“The CIA…”

“The CIA and the secret services and whatever spy organization is left from a time before this war are being tracked down by my investigators and my own little spies. I have bought the best hackers in the globe, _I have bought_ the best private securities on the _globe_ , they cannot get to me. If they even peek out of their hidden caves – I will have them tracked down the next moment”.

Dante’s face seemed to lose even more color and Lexa snarled now, because she’d stepped closer and the faint scent of cologne had drifted up to her nose.

 _Fucking cologne_.

“The Reapers? We are ending today with them. I am going to get out there in the streets and I will hunt down the leader of this organization and that we very well know, lives in this city. If I get _him_ , the rest of these bastards are going to be torn apart by rebels in the next year. If I get him to _talk_ , the Reapers are going to be done by the end of the very next months”.

He was opening his mouth to speak, but Lexa’s hand snapped out and took a rough hold of the collar of his vest. It took very little effort to force him onto a chair, Gustus having appeared by her side the very next second. The rest of the ambassadors shot back in surprise at the violent turn of events.

“Lexa!” the man called out and Lexa looked at him, knowing she was right, knowing she had allowed a mole to operate in the Council itself.

How could she have missed the vague suggestions of Lexa staying back and hidden and toning down the direct action of planning an attack, a raid, a lockdown, a patrol?

How could she have missed the way Dante Wallace tried to divert the conversation about the Reapers to the major issues in the rest of the States that needed to be talked about for months?

The gentle approach to information Lexa had often stated they weren’t to be known by everyone. The constant discussions about the food and clothing supplies, the way he pushed to know about numbers and storages and deliveries happening. The soft diversions of the conversation about how he came to have a place in the Council, in the Commander’s table. The truly unknown information about Dante’s past or his connection to the people. The why to the question of where the hell he was in the general meetings of his own city, why none of the local rebels seemed to actually know him.

The Ambassador of Washington DC was a fucking mole and Lexa had allowed it for a full goddamned year. She’d shared with him so many information, so many locations of food and clothing and weaponry storages to bride Reapers and people to join this terrorism organization.

“You are making a mistake!” he called out.

“Who _the fuck_ are you, Dante?” she spat out and the man shook under the intense green eyes and, no, this man did not have the acidic guts to be a Reaper. He didn’t have the stomach for it, but this did not mean he wasn’t helping them.

“I’m not a Reaper”, he managed to utter and Lexa’s hand tightened around the collar of his ironed vest. This man had electricity in wherever he was living; enough to iron and wash his clothes and cook his own food; this man hadn’t been on their side on this war.

“Who the fuck is then?”

“I…”

“A wife?” Lexa growled out, pushing him back against the chair as a warning. “Who is a fucking Reaper, Dante? A relative for sure, so _who is it?!”_

“Please, Lexa, he doesn’t know what he is doing, he…”

“ _Who?_ ”

“Please…”

“Tell me!”

“My son!” Dante cried out and there were tears leaking out the corners of his eyes but Lexa could only see Clarke heaving and coughing blood, her feet damaged and swollen and unable to touch the ground for more than a few seconds. Lexa could only see Clarke flinching away from her girlfriend’s touch, waking up in cold sweat and stumbling to the bathroom to throw up their dinner.

“Your son?” Lexa snapped, fingers clenching around the fabric of the vest. They were close and the woman could clearly smell the faint scent of cologne and, _for fuck’s sake_ , how could she ha _ve missed this_? She was a fool – _a fool!_ “Who is your son?”

“He doesn’t… he doesn’t know what he is doing, Lexa, please, he…”

“Talk!” Gustus snapped as well, his deep voice echoing in the room, and a tiny group of rebels had started to form outside the locked door, having heard the shouts.

Dante shook his head, locked his jaw and Lexa bared her teeth, knowing he was not going to talk to them. She let go of his vest, pushing away as if the fabric burned the slender fingers. She didn’t waste time from reaching into the side of the belt on her pants, grabbing the phone that was strapped there.

There were about ten to twelve phone numbers in there, all of them encrypted and, Lexa sent a silent prayer to whoever had opened a way of communication with these hackers in the other side of the ocean. Stealing billions of dollars from dead bankers did have some perks after all and even if the Internet was not operational in America and by the common people at the moment, Lexa was the one controlling the power after all.

“ _Hello?_ ” an accented voice came through and Lexa only hesitated for a split moment before mumbling out a code. A squeal of delight sounded from the other side, a trail of rapid words in some Arabic language coming through and falling into Lexa’s ears.

“ _Captain of the USA_ ”, the voice laughed in English after some time and Lexa had to huff out a tight breath, uncomfortable by this turn of events.

“Listen, I want you search for any hint someone might be looking into my full name and background”.

“ _Alexandria Woods_ ”, the man stated. The name sounded unfamiliar in her own ears after so many years of not having to hear it. The unknown language clipped around the letters and made it even more alien to Lexa. “ _You pay us to have it under watch, do you not?_ ”

“I do”.

“ _Yes and so we do. Nobody is looking for you, Alexandria_ ”.

“My cover was blown here. So there might be. I need to keep my family safe from them”, she uselessly tried to explain the first reason of the call.

“ _You sound like vigilante with the blown cover_ ”, the man laughed and Lexa had a feeling that she was paying them too much for this.

Look at her thinking like a capitalist…

“ _The Woods family is safe for now, Captain_ ”, the man continued, _“but we will keep a closer eye on the screens for you_ ”.

“Thank you. I needed one more thing”.

“ _Payment is going up with every new thing_ ”.

“I know. You will have the money like always”, Lexa cleared her throat. “I want you to look into someone named Dante Wallace. Washington DC. He has a son that I’m looking for. I want the name, age, where was his last digital location, everything”.

“ _Oh ho, problems with the commander this son has. Not smart_ ”.

“Can you contact me when you have the information?”

“ _Will do. Awaiting the payment, Captain Alexandria_ ”.

She closed her eyes, uncomfortable, desperate for this conversation to be over. If one thing scared her the most, someone having so many information about every detail of her life was it. Lexa did not like the way these people could dig out of the internet whatever they pleased about anyone just for fun.

“ _And remember, you have our… huh, solidarity? Is this what the word is? Yes? You’ve got our solidarity in this war, yes? I say it to you personally. You pay good money, you are a honorable leader, not some politician. We see on the news about America and the war and we are praying you win_ ”.

“Thank you”, she managed to say and the words did calm her down, like every other time they were said to her by these people.

“ _Army doesn’t have our support in this, yes? So even though we do this for money, we also have honor and I say this you, they will not get help from us in this. We are on your side, Lexa Woods_ ”.

“Thank you”, she repeated but it came softer, almost broken and the words could be good delivered lies, but they reached somewhere deep inside her chest, filling it with kind warmth. It was the only direct and open contact anyone in this war had with the rest of the world, the only moment the Coalition reached out to countries across the ocean. The letters of the uprisings in Europe didn’t carry the same significance as this directness of talking to someone, of remembering how real and close the rest of the world was to them.

The phone stayed silent in Lexa’s ear and she took in a deep breath to ease some of the tension that had filled the muscles of her back and shoulders. She stood into the second floor of the building, looking down at the open space in the middle, forearms resting on the flat surface of the thick marble railing. Rebels had taken spots behind the tall barricaded windows, sniper rifles and boxes of ammo ready to be used in any moment. Further inside, people were soundly napping in their thick sleeping bags and under blankets, their weapons within reach. A couple of hearths burned around to cast glowing warmth in the interior.

Lexa sighed, feeling exhaustion crush down on her back, burning her eyes and pulling at the corners of her mouth downward. The sun was only starting to come up and in a few minutes, the Eligius Organization would stroll inside the rebel base, with their cutting gazes and sharp words and dubious interests.

Blue eyes flashed in her head and Lexa barely stifled a whimper, lowering her head in the extended forearms. She hated this sitting around, when Clarke was held in some basement again. She hated the way the anxiety whipped at the inside of her gut and made her stomach turn viciously with bile that reached up her dry throat. It took great effort to keep the burning tears at bay, to keep her hands from shaking.

This couldn’t be happening again.

But it was. It was happening and Lexa gritted her teeth painfully, gulping roughly at the knot choking and scratching her throat. The image of Clarke in a chokehold felt like an electric shock, making Lexa physically jolt, strong shudders crushing through the way down her back. For a moment, Lexa felt like letting out a scream at the gallery’s wide space.

She didn’t.

Lexa lifted her eyes just as Diyoza walked past the entrance as if the woman owned the city, a team of harsh looking men and women following a step behind. Across the space of the height difference, their gazes met in an intense stare off that Lexa eventually won.

One thing at the time.


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See, I updated a while ago, but i feel like a year has passed or something. So many things have happened in two months, I swear to god, people. How is everyone? How are your towns? Everyone in one piece? Any riots happening across Europe?
> 
> Greece is living some interesting times with the movement, I'm having the time of my life, makes up for the times university crashes my soul.
> 
> Any Spanish folks here with us? Solidarity to Palbo Hasel, guys, keep on going until he is out of prison, much much solidarity from here

A sound cut through the fog settled over Clarke’s mind. The first thing she realized was that the room was very cold and still, feeling vast and naked from furniture or other people. The chill of it wasn’t just due to the winter’s temperatures, but also due to the way the concrete reflected the sounds in a shallow and vibrating echo, which shot straight through Clarke’s ears and had the fine hair of her arms stand to an end.

“ _Clarke_ ”.

Someone was saying her name and Clarke shuddered on the hard floor, struggling to open her eyes against the weight settled on them. It was difficult to breathe, lungs too full and too empty at the same time, her dry throat opening and closing around a scratching knot. She moaned quietly, split lips parted and unable to move properly, a drop of saliva slipping out from them.

She struggled to think properly.

She was drugged.

_“Clarke!”_

Her throat closed painfully around the fruitless effort she made to gulp. Saliva and air fought to pass down her throat, making one of the two catch in the middle of it, clawing and choking and gaging, and Clarke started to cough, fighting for breath, a gulp of clear air. She convulse for a moment on the floor, trying to spit out the knot that had formed in her chest.

Reddened blue eyes snapped open and shaking arms lifted the trembling body to the side. Dry retches rocked her tensed muscles and coating the white skin in cold sweat.

“Clarke!”

It was Raven crying out the name, and Clarke managed to take in a bottomless gulp of oxygen, feeling her lungs expanding for a long moment. The harsh coughs eased after, a few softer ones following as her breathing eased into something steady and smooth and painless. She spat a mouthful of saliva once, trying to halt the speed of the pooling liquid in her mouth that made it difficult to gulp.

Her hands rubbed on the crude surface of bare concrete, greyish dirt sticking to the skin of her palms. Blue eyes blinked against the faint light coming from a lonely bulb that hung from the ceiling just outside the cell Clarke found herself in. Metallic bars cut off the way to a narrow hallway outside the tight space the three concrete walls created. Across from her, Clarke spotted a shape of a person curled up to a corner of an equally built cell.

“Raven?” she rasped, remembering her best friend’s voice calling out her name.

“ _Next to you_ ”, Raven’s voice came from Clarke right – close but distant at the same time. There was a wall separating them and the blonde shuddered as she scooted a bit closer to the vertical surface, to feel closer to the mechanic on the other side.

“Are you okay?” she huffed, pressing her pounding forehead on the cool concrete, trying to listen to anything out of the ordinary in her friend’s breathing pattern as it echoed on the hard, bare surfaces. It was harder than it should be, but steady and rhythmic and calm. It was fine.

“ _Yeah, just a headache_ ”.

“Same”, Clarke mumbled. “It must be from the drug”.

Raven didn’t reply and Clarke felt tears pooling at her burning eyes, a scratching knot settling back down in her chest. She could not believe she found herself in the exact same position not even three months after the museum’s basement, the reality of it making it had to breathe. Of course, Clarke knew of known fighters and members of the Coalition being hunted down again and again and again by Reapers, up until they fled the main city for another State and the borders or they ended up dead and hung up somewhere downtown for the world to see.

And, really, Clarke had kind of expected it, after stumbling over Murphy and then, been found by Echo. They had both warned her of them having a mark on Clarke’s back, thinking she was more to the revolutionary movement than a simple doctor. Deep inside, Clarke had had a feeling some kind of close call with the Reapers would eventually happen, but _this?_ Being in the same position as a few months ago? No, it was near the bottom of the things that Clarke had expected.

And every time, she had thought about it with dread, Raven had not been with her.

Clarke clapped a hand over her mouth to keep a sob muffled, the silent on the other side of the wall striking louder than any word Raven could say at the moment. Tight worry clawed inside Clarke’s chest, nails scraping at her beating heart.

“Listen to me”, Clarke rasped and heard Raven shuffling around on the other side, as if she was pressing closer to the wall. “We only need to hold on. Anything they might do to us, we have to hold on”.

“ _Hold on to what_?”

She didn’t have an answer and her mind flashed with the memory of Lexa’s terrified eyes as she looked up at them from behind Anya’s shoulders before stepping closer. It had been a sign of hope, watching Lexa’s eyes and movements harden with anger and determination as she stalked the group of Reapers as if they were her preys. It’d helped Clarke’s panic ease into the sense of trust she had for Lexa.

“The cause of what we are doing”, she said slowly and Raven quietened again. “Of what we are doing in the streets, with our people. Of what we have been fighting and building. Fuck the Reapers. Fuck this place. We are in the right side of this war and they want us dead for it. They have been killing us for it since the moment we got up and started. They won’t break us. Because we are right, okay?”

“ _Okay_ ”.

“Good. Fuck this place”, Clarke’s voice wobbled with anger, a trembling hand lifting up to press at her aching eyes. Rage coiled in her stomach. “Fuck these people”.

“ _Articulated, Clarke_ ”.

“I love you, Raven”, Clarke choked out and a sniffle sounded from the other side.

The mechanic’s voice was strong. “ _I love you too, Griffin_ ”.

She nodded, blinking as tears slid out of her eyes. She didn’t reach up to wipe them, wanting the burn of them, the fullness of the emotions they carried. They slid over her cheeks like gentle caresses of fingertips and Clarke focused on the sensations to have a grasp on the presence.

They had to be strong to get through the rest of the days they’d be stuck here until a moment presented itself like last time. Now, Clarke didn’t have a box of matches in a pocket; her coat had been ripped off of her, along with her boots, the butterfly knife she had hidden in one of them. The straps of the hostler and her gun were taken off from around Clarke’s shoulders and back. For some reason, the belt of her jeans was gone as well.

“Anya is going to burn the fucking city to the ground to find you”.

Raven let out a wet chuckle, shuffling on her own spot on the floor. “ _I think Lexa is most likely to do that. Did you see her out there? She looked fucking dangerous to mess with_ ”.

Truth was she’d never seen so much anger in Lexa’s face before today. She’d never seen the woman she loved look so feral and wildly untamed. Clarke exhaled deeply, closing her eyes at the memory of the commander snarling low words at the radio, combat boots stealthily trailing after the Reapers while they were swallowed by the shadows. Lexa had looked like she pursued the masked Reapers, getting ready to attack at a moment’s notice.

Clarke knocked her forehead gently against the wall, gulping down the next set of tears. She wanted to hope that Lexa would have set a course of trying to find them, but, at the same time, if she hoped, she knew she would lose her focus on trying to get out any moment. Last time, Clarke was surrounded by people and now metallic bars separated her from the word, the lock on the door secured by an extra chain.

There was no heat in this building. No tubes carrying explosive gas they could light up. Clarke didn’t have any precious luck this time…

“ _Where are they?_ ”

The voice came before the loud clang of a metallic door slamming against steel bars. The sound made Clarke jerk on the spot against the cell’s wall, skin crawling as their footsteps came closer and closer. Reddened blue eyes snapped towards the bars of her own prison, gaze landing on the two long shadows sliding against the floor in the weak yellow light.

Worn out black shoes came into view first and Clarke could picture the way they had used to shine – polished and black and elegant. Time, dirt and use had taken a toll on them now, leaving them grey and raw upon sight. The man’s trousers seemed to be in a better condition, the black color having kept its depth, the fabric’s shape having kept its measured form. An old, dark grey vest rested above a simple white shirt and if Clarke had to guess she would say a suit’s black jacket was left somewhere.

The man’s youthful eyes looked back at her with contained danger and something so very cold…

“She is the one?”

There was a tone of surprise in his smooth voice and Clarke almost kept from pulling a face and spitting at his damned shoes with the tight dark brown lashes.

“Yes, sir”.

The second shape behind the Boss-man stared right back at Clarke without trying to hide a face of disgust and outrage. The cigarette hung from his fingers and the young blonde woman felt a shudder spam down her spine at the familiar image. He was the very same man who had stood in the corner of the room in the museum’s basement, talking with Emerson, watching, watching, watching, without moving his blue eyes a half-inch away from Clarke’s body being repeatedly beaten.

This time, Clarke did pull a face and her mouth filled with a generous mouth of saliva but she kept it back, she kept it for the moment. This Reaper was not the important one.

The brunette man in the suit had a scar on the side of his mouth. Skin whiter than a dead person’s body, glistered under the yellow light, making it look paler than it was.

“I wouldn’t have spared her a second glance”, he said with a soft eye roll and a hand vaguely gesturing at Clarke’s curled up shape on the floor. “Look at her; blonde, blue eyes, sweet face; could have been taken straight out of a Vogue magazine”.

 _Oh, what the hell_ , Clarke thought, eyebrows pulling together in a frown because _this, this was the leader of the terrorism organization?_

“You know better, Cage”, the silent Reaper rasped, taking a drag of his cigarette and blowing out the thin smoke. His blue eyes didn’t strand away and Clarke wanted this man dead. His gaze had haunted her enough.

“I do know better, Vincent. I trust you when you say she is the one”.

Clarke let her head fall back on the concrete wall, eyes never stranding away from the two of them. “What do you want from me?”

Cage seemed even more surprised by the sound of her hoarse voice and he shifted, a hand reaching out to gesture at Clarke with more intense movement. “Sweet Jesus, even her voice is like… girly and all. What is this, Vincent?”

Vincent did not answer. A shadow had fallen over his face as Clarke spoke, his own eyes flashing with deep danger and hatred. “Don’t let her fool you”.

Cage let his arms fall and some kind of façade pulled over his face now melted away in an expression of cold arrogance and calculating force. Clarke was not surprised by the change; finally able to see the true skin of this mind. A pair of freezing eyes turned back on Clarke and a deep sigh lifted up Cage’s chest for a moment.

“Fine, take her to my office”, he mumbled as if he was bored and Clarke groaned when two more shapes appeared around the corner, the masked heads turned toward her. Gloved hands mechanically opened the cell’s rusty lock and Clarke felt her muscles tensing up, felt Raven move from the other side of the wall.

“ _Hey, you fucker!_ ”

Clarke’s eyes shut closed at the call, feeling like the floor collapsed right under her bootless feet. Cage tilted his head with interest toward Raven in the next cell.

“And who is that?”

“Back the fuck off of them”, Clarke snarled, trying to shrug off a hand just for show. It worked and there was a harsh push aimed on her shoulder, slamming her on the metallic bars of her cell. She groaned – half in faint pain and half of clear warning, feeling the familiar weight of anger settle on the top of her torso and slowly starting to drag and spread out across her limbs.

“You want me”.

It worked; Cage leaned back toward Clarke, calculating brown eyes seemingly unable to stop taking in the expressions across her face, like they were searching – like they were trying to confirm something. Reddened, dazed, icy blue eyes stared back at him and Clarke let every inch of hatred held for his people come clean across them.

Something glimmered behind his own gaze.

“Take her downstairs. I want us to have a talk and _,_ please, no blood this time on the way, I cannot handle cleaning it at the moment”.

Clarke almost launched herself at him.

The masked people kept their hold tight around Clarke’s upper arms, their steps in perfect rhythm. They had batons on their belts, automatic rifles carefully strapped on their backs, bulletproof vests across their chests. They both moved in sync, barely even putting any effort to have Clarke walk between them. There was no obvious way to escape.

They passed through six more cells, three on either side, cell bars and deep shadows mapping the hallway as they went. A heavy metallic door on the end of it was open and one masked soldier stood guard on the other side of the doorframe, holding a weapon and looking ahead as they passed in front of him. As the last soldier came through, he mechanically reached over and locked the heavy door, returning to his post a step away.

From what Clarke could tell, this wasn’t an official prison building. The cells seemed old and carefully made to hold, metal bolted on the concrete perfectly but it seemed raw and bare, not build to host life for long. There were no high security systems in place, no appropriate spaces and rooms for prisoners or guards. It looked more like a construction site than a fully built establishment. She didn’t know where they were, didn’t know what this building was used for before the war.

Cage’s office was a floor below, the lights shining brighter with weak electricity. A desk, a small library and a couch rested inside the office, the interior exceptionally warmer due to an electric heater. It looked expensive and in perfect condition and it brought an involuntary sigh out of Clarke’s lips as she was forced to sit on a chair next to it.

There was no window and only one door.

Cage sighed as well, stepping around his desk and filling a glass with clear water. It flowed teasingly in front of Clarke’s eyes, the sight of it making the dryness of her throat almost hurt. The man tsked his tongue once and the soldiers behind Clarke took a step back as if they were releasing her. With a few steps, Cage came to sit on a chair in front of Clarke, handing over the glass of water.

“We have a lot of talking to do”, he smirked – almost softly.

Clarke considered not taking the water.

Her eyes almost watered at the thought and a hand treacherously – _mercifully_ – reached out for it. It awfully tasted better than anything Clarke had ever had, a very sweet wave of cool comfort opening a gentle way down her throat.

“Better?”

“Better”, Clarke cleared her throat, shifting on the chair. She wasn’t tied onto it and the water gave her enough strength to leap up and tackle the man onto the floor – if it wasn’t for the two guards in the room.

“So, you have been part of this… movement for quite some time, right?”

Clarke watched him sit in front of her, legs crossed, hands peacefully resting onto a knee. He had dag a heel on the floor and the lower half of his body was gently swinging left and right. As if nothing in the world was wrong. The heater gently burned at her own bootless feet, and Clarke fought not to lift them off of the floor and tack them underneath her.

She considered not answering – not saying a damn word to this man and rotten ideal of the old world and system. She considered spending the rest of the time in this tiny office staring at the heater until Cage snapped.

The thought almost made her flinch.

“I have. You have always been a terrorist?”

Cage chuckled, head tilting to the side. It was almost invisible, the way the fingers on his knee locked just a bit tighter. “Let’s keep this conversation objective”, he said. “I know what you think about me and you know what I think about you, it will get us nowhere if we start with the name calling”.

With a sigh to contain the boiling anger, Clarke slacked back against the back of the chair. It’d be wise to stop pushing her little luck with these people, but at the same time, Clarke wasn’t a person to forget of the countless crimes been made against the common folks in the beginning of this war. “Such a democrat”.

“Alright, well –” Cage growled for a moment, and Clarke bit her dry lips to stop a smirk, or a grimaced. He took a second to gulp and compose himself before being able to answer the sarcasm. “Clarke Griffin, is it? I want to be civilized for the sake of old times, when we were one people and –“

“Fuck right off this building, dude”, Clarke mumbled and it sounded exhausted – as tired as her fucking soul fucking felt. Her body completely slacked on the given seat, the adrenaline slipping out of the heavy limbs. “There had always been two sides”.

“Oh? The bad rich people and the exploited poor ones you mean”, Cage continued, meeting the reddened blue eyes. “Good theory about the world and a very good analysis to support a movement like your own… Of course, a theory abandoned in the twentieth century. Missing the part of the true capabilities that lay in our hands, at a time like this, the true means each and every individual processes to build a very good life for themselves”.

“Yes, yes, everyone takes what they deserve, right?” Clarke let out a bitter smile. It was a conversation Clarke had had too many times before in her life. “What they worked for”.

“Isn’t this the most meritorious system?”

“But who was the judge for it?”

“Common values”.

“And if I were to say those common values were taught by corrupted standards?”

Cage smirked. “You’d be going against a whole society”.

Clarke managed a smile back. “Seems like that’s what I did”.

“And what have you done, Clarke?” Cage narrowed his eyes. “A great country just as our own is now weakened because of your little rebellion”.

She wanted to laugh because this could be the biggest rebellion there had ever been in the history of mankind. But Clarke didn’t interrupt.

“Look at this… you left our country weak against its enemies all over the world. We lived in the same time before the war; did you not see the threats made against us? Half of the countries with nuclear weapons aimed open threats against America and when this country needed its people united… your movement went ahead and tore it apart from the inside”.

“Would you be one of those people shipped away to France, Cage?” Clarke asked but it was clear his answer was going to be an affirmative by the puff of his chest. “You wouldn’t be one…” she answered the truth for him “…I am sure you had a family business to run and Daddy wouldn’t let you go be meat to nuclear weapons, even if you were brainwashed enough to want to. It would be you in the first lines. Some young folk would have been, too young to die in someone else’s war”.

“There is honor in…”

“Fuck off”, Clarke said tiredly again. “Why would a football scholarship student care about weapons in fucking France? Why would I care about a military base in Middle East? Is my home there? Is my job there? My family or friends or what? But no, they would send me off to protect my country’s sovereign rights in another land I had never seen”.

“You miss the picture”, Cage relaxed back in his chair as well. “You are naïve to think they wouldn’t use those weapons first”.

“And why haven’t they done it until now?” Clarke asked, meeting his eyes again. “It has been more than a year since the Coalition seized the nuclear weapons of this land and has put their control bases in tight lockdown. Why hasn’t France hit us now that we are weakened?”

Cage’s eyes seemed to narrow even more.

“I will tell you why”, Clarke smiled. “Because the working class and the people of France are currently fighting a civil war of their own, claiming publicly of how the revolution of the American people born and inspired their own rebellion. And I agree with you; if all those countries weren’t looking inwards at the moment, we sure as hell would be burned to the ground by now, or at least, we would be fighting a war from the defensive side. But we are not and it is enough”.

“Until when? France might be… split as well. And rumors say so is Russia and most of the countries of Europe and Asia. What happens when one of them turns their weapons on us?”

“We still have the National Army’s weaponry, Cage. The commander would never leave the people unprotected”.

“Ah, the famous commander, most likely a woman I hear, who none of her soldiers know. Impressive how she has remained in the shadows for so long. Like she hasn’t been an active part in the riot she caused, right? Is that a leader to trust?”

Clarke felt like nodding. Instead, she kept her voice flat, shallowed down the urge to lift her chin and spit at his shoes, proudly state of everything Lexa had done for this country in the last year. She kept her voice flat and her eyes steady and her body just as loose and relaxed.

“Seems like”.

“Seems like…”

Clarke shrugged. “Why? Every one of your soldiers knows you?”

“Curious thing”, Cage smiled. “They do and they don’t talk. They are just that loyal”.

“Loyal, huh?” Clarke smirked. “Curious word to use”.

“I hear the commander is pretty charismatic”, Cage stated and Clarke froze lightly, blue eyes snapping up to his. He wasn’t looking at her though, the thoughts in his head seemingly having his attention at the moment. “She even managed to _seduce_ my father in a way. With her morals, I mean. A fool – my father – doesn’t believe in what a weapon violence actually is. I have a feeling he is a pacifist or something”.

“Why don’t you ask your father of who the commander is?”

“Nah, he doesn’t approve of what I have done”, Cage seemed to scowl. Something in his eyes darkened. “Cut of ties early on, unfortunately, decided to step away from violence and help from afar”.

“Help from afar?”

Cage shrugged. “If you figure out what that means, please, inform me too. Does your father support you?”

“My father passed years ago”.

“Ah, my condolences then”.

Clarke hummed a low sound, but didn’t answer.

Silence stretched on between them, both of their eyes falling on the electric heater and the glowing orange bars in the middle of it. The warmth made Clarke’s mind cloud, made the last hints of adrenaline slip right off, left her body trembling on the chair as ease did not come. The warmth didn’t bring comfort or even fear or anxiety, it brought something like longing for a bed and Lexa’s body by her side. It brought the desperation for a warmth that couldn’t be provided in this place nor by these people.

Clarke closed her burning eyes and fought the urge to completely collapse in front of this leader of an army of murderers.

“Ah, look at the time”, Cage tsked again, standing from his chair and making Clarke open her eyes as well in alerted worry. The two soldiers stepped closer from behind her, towering over the chair and waiting orders; “Good chat, Clarke, and I expect for us to continue it in a few hours from now, but I have to take care of my mother now. You two, take her upstairs and then get out of here. Come back with information of this movement we have spotted in the middle of the night”.

“Sure thing, sir. Come on, blondie”.

Clarke followed them without thinking it much, her body weak and melting because of the heat and exhaustion and whatever was left of that drug they had used to knock them out. The stairs felt like a mountain to climb but in the end, the blue eyes caught sight of the lonely guard outside the metallic door.

The floor of the cell seemed awfully inviting for a nap.

“ _Clarke? Are you okay?_ ”

Clarke breathed out heavily as they locked the squeaking door behind her, hearing Raven shifting on the other side of the wall. Her back pressed against it and she slowly let herself melt on the bare floor, feeling the scratch of the concrete over the sweater she wore.

“I’m fine”.

“ _Did he hurt you?_ ”

“No, no”, Clarke cleared her throat pressing the heels of her palms on aching eyes. “I don’t know what he wanted… We… talked about… I don’t know. We talked about war and shit”.

“ _War? This war?_ ”

“In general”.

“ _As like a concept?_ ”

The disbelief brought a chuckle out of Clarke’s throat. “I don’t know, Raven”. She let her head fall back with muffled _thud._ “I don’t think he likes getting his hands dirty”.

“ _Well, that’s comforting_ ”, Raven snorted.

“He said something about movement in the city during the night”.

“ _He did?_ ”

“Yeah”, Clarke blinked at the wall in front of her for a moment.

“ _You think Lexa is one the move_?”

The words brought a bubble of hope filling up inside Clarke’s chest and the blonde had to twist her fingers hard enough to hurt and make the feeling tone down a bit. What was happening outside of this hall wasn’t going to help them survive at the time being – until what was happening outside managed to fully get in. Until then, the people in these ten rusty prison cells were on their own.

“I’m going to sleep for a bit”, Clarke cleared her throat, turning so her side was pressed on the wall instead of her head. The metal bars were cold against her back, but soon enough she got used to it, leaning her head in the small space between two of them. Some weight left her shoulders.

“I will be right here when you wake up”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed


End file.
